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Millennial evangelicals more likely to attend church weekly than older generations, poll finds
Millennial evangelicals more likely to attend church weekly than older generations, poll finds
By Samuel Smith
The Christian Post
May 22, 2019
Evangelical millennials are more likely to be engaged at church than older generations of evangelicals while also being more likely than Generation X evangelicals to give to charities every year, a recently released poll indicates.
Commissioned by the marketing and fundraising firm Dunham+Company, a survey of over 1,000 evangelical believers across the U.S. was conducted by WPA Intelligence in April in a quest to analyze generational attitudes on charitable giving.
The study found that 53 percent of self-identified evangelicals surveyed said they attend church once per week or more.
By comparison, 61 percent of millennial evangelicals (ages 18 through 34), 54 percent of “boomers and matures” (ages 55 and over) and 44 percent of Generation X (ages 35 to 54) respondents said the same.
“Millennials are often believed to be disengaged in their faith, but this study shows that those Millennials who identify as evangelicals are more engaged in their faith than other generations,” Dunham+Company founder Rick Dunham said in a statement.
“This mirrors our study from 2017 which showed that Millennials generally are as likely to engage in religious attendance compared to other generations, with this current study showing a much higher engagement among those who identify as Evangelicals.”
Measuring the generosity of evangelicals, the survey found that 71 percent of evangelicals said they give to charitable organizations each year.
Only 55 percent of the general population said the same in a Philanthropy Panel Study conducted from 2001 to 2015 by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, according to Dunham+Company.
Dunham+Company’s most recent survey found that “boomers and matures” (78 percent) were the generational groups most likely to say they give to charities annually.
However, millennial evangelicals (68 percent) were slightly more likely than their Generation X counterparts (63 percent) to say that they give to charities annually.
The survey, which claims a 3.1-percentage-point margin of error, also found that millennial evangelicals were the most likely to say they would increase the amount that they give to charities (34 percent). Meanwhile, 21 percent of respondents from Generation X and 12 percent of “boomers and matures” said the same.
Dunham+Company’s 2017 study found that evangelical millennial respondents were less likely than Generation X evangelicals to say they give to charities annually.
“Our new study seems to indicate that Millennials will give more to charity as they mature,” Dunham predicted in 2017. “Anecdotally, we know that factors like job status and student debt can limit how much they give at this stage of their lives.”
In a video, Dunham said that the millennial generation is the biggest generation in the history of America and “going to have a massive impact on charity in the coming years.”
“So we wanted to study them to not only understand their behaviors, their likes, and dislikes but also how did they compare to other generations of donors,” Dunham, who has consulted for ministries for over 30 years, explained.
The survey also found that 40 percent of evangelicals surveyed said they prefer to donate through a church’s website or mobile app, while 32 percent said they prefer giving through check or mail.
Along with the survey, Dunham+Company is offering a research-driven webinar, titled “Millennial Donors: They’re Not Who You Think They Are.”
The Christian Post reached out to Dunham+Company for clarification on how the generational categories were defined for this survey. A response is pending.
GOP pollster says Pete Buttigieg’s policies are in line with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren
GOP pollster says Pete Buttigieg’s policies are in line with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren
By Anna Hopkins
Fox News
May 20, 2019
A day after 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg’s town hall with Fox News, Republican pollster Chris Wilson told “Fox & Friends” that the South Bend, Indiana mayor’s political platforms aren’t unlike those of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Arguing that it was a “smart move” by Buttigieg to appear at the Fox News town hall, just as Sanders did and Warren refused to do, Wilson added that Buttigieg is likely still too far outside the mainstream to gain a popular vote.
“It’s the younger, well-informed, center-left candidate,” Wilson, CEO of WPA Intelligence, said. “But at the same time, there is not much distinguishable between his policies and those of Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
“Even though he put a softer edge on it, I think in the end he comes off as somebody who is way too far out of the mainstream for American politics,” he continued.
Buttigieg acknowledged at the event that he needs to work harder to appeal to voters of color.
According to “Fox & Friends” host Ainsley Earhardt, Buttigieg is polling well among white voters but at only one percent among “non-white primary voters.”
Wilson said this means Buttigieg will find success in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, but will face more difficulty when campaigning in southern states like South Carolina, Texas and Georgia.
“Even in California, the vote will be heavily Hispanic, heavily African-American. He will have challenges outside of major metropolitan areas and outside of the midwest,” Wilson said.
Despite the mayor’s impressive rise since announcing his presidential run, Wilson said he believes Buttigieg will have a strong run but eventually “flame out.”
Given the fact that Joe Biden continues to lead the polls among Democratic voters, Earhardt asked Wilson whether it’s possible Biden could choose Buttigieg as his running mate, should he get the nomination.
“The Democratic party will not accept a ticket with two white males,” Wilson said.
“Buttigieg may be homosexual he still is white. Major coalitions of the Democratic party, African-Americans, Hispanics, are going to come out and say ‘won’t stand for this,’ you have to have Kamala Harris or someone like that as the VP,” he added.
Trump’s trade war puts Southern Republicans in an awkward spot
Trump’s trade war puts Southern Republicans in an awkward spot
By Michael Warren, CNN
ABC-7
May 17th, 2019
In the halls of the Capitol these days, Republican lawmakers from Southern states aren’t exactly eager to talk about the President’s trade war with China.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky didn’t have anything to say when approached by CNN on Tuesday. Asked if trade with China has been good for his state, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said he didn’t know. Fellow South Carolinian Sen. Lindsey Graham said it was a good question and that he’d have to think about it. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas just shrugged.
There’s a reason Southern Republicans are reluctant to talk about tariffs. As much as any region in the country, the South has benefited from free trade, which has helped boost demand for its agricultural goods and provided its factories with low-cost components to feed the region’s growing industrial base.
But those economic interests cut against the political preferences of the majority of voters in Southern states, where Trump enjoys some of his highest approval ratings in the country.
While the tariff pain has been immediate for Midwestern farmers who are stuck with bushels of unsold crops and face a spike in bankruptcies, the South may not be far behind as Trump’s trade war drags on.
Politicians and business leaders in the region worry a protracted trade war could disrupt nearly three decades of economic revitalization that has brought industry, jobs, and billions of dollars of foreign investment to large swaths of the South, and bolstered the GOP’s firm grip on the region’s politics.
According to a recent analysis by Deutsche Bank, of the eight states whose economies are most affected by Chinese tariffs and are likely to get hit the hardest, five are in the South: Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, and Mississippi. All of them voted for Trump in 2016.
Trump’s grip on the South
While Republicans from Midwestern farm states have been more vocal in their opposition to the trade war, most notably Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a farmer himself, Southern Republicans have mostly kept their heads down.
That may simply be a political calculation on the part of Republicans who hail from a region that still strongly backs the President. According to state trends compiled by Morning Consult, the President’s popularity has dropped more in the Farm Belt than it has in the Deep South. For example, since he took office, Trump’s net approval has fallen 19 points in Nebraska, 17 points in Iowa and 22 points in Kansas.
By comparison, he’s down only 10 points in Alabama, 11 points in Louisiana and 14 points in Mississippi.
That calculation may change if Trump’s trade policy begins to impose significant costs to Southerners. That could take a while as tariffs move along the complex supply chains woven through the region’s diverse industries, raising costs, trimming profits and eventually hitting consumers’ wallets.
Thursday’s news that Arkansas-based retail giant Walmart will be raising some prices due to increased tariffs is a harbinger of what’s to come.
The retail giant is the largest private employer across the South and a staple of the region’s identity. While consumers might not be feeling the full effects of tariffs yet, they will in a few months.
“If you’re getting into back-to-school and people are trying to buy clothes from overseas for their kids, that’s when people are going to feel it,” said Chip Felkel, a veteran Republican operative from Greenville, South Carolina. When that happens, partisan loyalty to Trump will only go so far for elected officials.
“At some point elected Republicans are either going to come to grips with or be reminded that all politics is local,” Felkel said.
For now, though, Southern Republicans are holding out hope the tariffs remain a temporary tool to make things better in the long term. “We’ve benefited from trade with China, but not to the degree that we should,” said Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, the former CEO of a low-price retailer prolific in the South, Dollar General. “We don’t have a level playing field.”
A Southern resurgence
During the campaign, Trump’s message of foreign countries ripping off American workers and stealing their jobs resonated most in the Rust Belt, where free trade really has hollowed out manufacturing. That helped Trump become the first Republican in decades to win Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
But Trump’s tale of American carnage wasn’t as applicable to the South. As manufacturing dried up in the industrial Midwest, production shifted to Southern states, as companies chased non-union labor, cheap land, low taxes and deep-water ports. In this way, the region was fertile ground for the modern Republican party’s ethos of free-market economics and cultural conservatism.
Foreign direct investment also poured into the South as companies such as Michelin, Volvo, Bosch, and Fujifilm all set up major operations in South Carolina alone. The proliferation of foreign automotive assembly plants throughout the South — from BMW in South Carolina to Toyota in Kentucky to Nissan in Tennessee and Mississippi — are a testament to the region’s place as a manufacturing powerhouse. Seaports in New Orleans, Charleston, Savannah and Mobile have served as major gateways for international exports and imports for the region.
A drive down Interstate 85 — from North Carolina’s Research Triangle, through the South Carolina Upstate and Metro Atlanta, down to Montgomery — reveals a corridor of heavy industry. New factories and plants, many of them foreign-owned, are flanked by ancillary industrial parks and service firms.
What worries southern business leaders is that the President’s trade actions are undercutting the region’s economic success story. Mike Randle, the owner and publisher of the Alabama-based Southern Business & Development media group, spends much of his time tracking new investment projects across the 15-state region, from Texas to Virginia.
He says the slowdown has already begun.
“Tariffs have taken the most competitive region in the US and undercut those advantages,” Randle told CNN. “Activity has stalled. People are worried about what’s coming and, of course, costs have gone up across the board.”
According to Randle’s tally, the number of new automotive manufacturing projects in the South with 200 jobs or more peaked in 2015 at 111. By 2018, the number of projects was cut in half to 55.
Last year, the administration put tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum in the name of national security, hiking costs across much of the auto sector. Trump is considering issuing a similar tariff on foreign auto parts but appears likely to delay that action for up to six months.
Even still, the mere threat of the action has companies spooked, particularly given how damaging they could be to the southern auto sector.
“If he puts in these 232 tariffs [on foreign automobiles] we will be in recession within a year,” Randle said.
Uncertainty is a problem
That’s the reason, Randle adds, that nobody in economic development across the South supports the tariffs.
“When you’re building airplanes in South Carolina with Boeing or cars with Kia here in Georgia, for those companies their greatest need is certainty,” said J. Mac Holladay, who has run statewide economic development offices in South Carolina, Mississippi and Georgia. “We’re so interdependent — internationally, economically — there just has to be a way forward that isn’t just always taking an axe.”
Business leaders in the South aren’t sitting back and taking it. Michael Olivier, the former economic development secretary for Louisiana, says everyone from the state’s ports to its industry and agricultural associations, have been lobbying members of Congress to express their concerns that too many tariffs for too long are bad for business. “We’re a very trade-sensitive state,” Olivier said.
“I can’t tell you how many folks have come into our office either in Mt. Pleasant or in D.C. just saying they want to know what’s coming ahead,” said Rep. Joe Cunningham, a freshman South Carolina Democrat who represents the Charleston area. “There’s clearly hundreds of millions of dollars in investment projects that have been sidelined or that have been frozen until we figure out where we’re going in this ‘trade war.”
What are Republicans waiting for?
Elected Republicans in the region haven’t been entirely silent. Senators like Scott of South Carolina and Johnny Isakson of Georgia have raised objections to specific protectionist actions — particularly the potential auto tariffs.
But what most Southern Republicans seem to be waiting for is a positive resolution to Trump’s trade standoff with Beijing.
“President Trump has made the defense of American workers the primary driver in all of his negotiations,” said Chris Wilson, a Republican pollster from Texas. “Our data shows voters in the South and even key battleground states approve. As long as the economy is strong, GOP members are safe standing with the President.”
Wilson admits that if the economy turns, that could change Trump and the GOP’s fortunes, even in the deep-red South. But for now there is plenty of trust among voters in the region that the President can deliver — even if they don’t like the administration’s methods.
“I’m not a tariff man,” Sen. Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, told CNN. “I don’t like tariffs, because it’s action-reaction, always. But I do believe that Trump is onto something as far as renegotiating our trade agreements.”
Even those cool to Trump’s tariffs say there are legitimate reasons to target China for unfair trade practices. “We need to get their attention somehow. Maybe this is the way to get their attention,” said Olivier.
He paused, then added, “But I don’t know if we can continue this for a long period of time.”
Nick Freitas Has Strong Lead In VA-07 Republican Primary
Nick Freitas Has Strong Lead In VA-07 Republican Primary
By Kevin Boyd
The Hayride
May 16, 2019
Virginia Delegate Nick Freitas has a strong lead in a possible Republican primary for the Virginia 7th Congressional District race if he decides to run. Freitas has a double-digit lead over his closest competitor.
Freitas, a favorite of libertarian and liberty-oriented conservatives, is being strongly encouraged to run for the VA-07 seat, which was held by another favorite of the liberty-wing, Dave Brat until his defeat last year. Freitas also has strong name ID with 41% of respondents knowing who he is.
Here’s the poll results:
Nick Freitas: 23%
Bryce Reeves: 11%
John McGuire: 9%
Tina Ramirez: 4%
Peter Greenwald: 1%
Undecided: 52%
The poll was conducted by WPA Intelligence for the Club For Growth PAC. The poll contacted 400 likely voters and has a margin of error of 4.9%.
“Nick Freitas is well-positioned to win the Republican nomination in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District,” said Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh in a press release. “We plan to invest more resources in Nick’s candidacy than in any of our previous House races.”
GOP pollster says Trump ahead of Biden in 4 out of 6 battleground states
GOP pollster says Trump ahead of Biden in 4 out of 6 battleground states
By Lukas Mikelionis
Fox News
May 14, 2019
President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are close in key battleground states, with Trump leading in four out of six crucial states, according to Republican pollster Chris Wilson.
Wilson, former director of research analytics and digital strategy for Ted Cruz’s 2016 campaign, told “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday morning that the latest findings from WPA Intelligence, where he is a CEO, are good news for Trump.
“What we found is the president is doing very well in a lot of the states he won back in 2016. The ones that gave him victory. And we see six states we looked at; he has a lead in all but two of them. And in those he is in the margin of error, just slightly behind,” he said.
Wilson said that Trump has a lead in Florida, Iowa, Texas and Wisconsin, while he’s in “dead heat” in Pennsylvania and slightly behind in Michigan, showing that the midterm elections last year, in which the GOP lost the control of the House, aren’t comparable to the presidential election.
“What we saw is the midterm elections really tell us nothing about what’s going to happen in 2020 and that’s a good reminder when it comes to these sort of presidential elections, midterm have nothing to do with it,” he said.
Wilson notes that when Trump is being tested against Biden, “we see he leads with blue-collar workers and we see he is rebounding with suburban voters.”
The poll also shows that Trump is breaking 50 percent approval rating in the battleground states, with 47 percent disapproving of him as the president. But Wilson says that these figures reflect more the “hyper partisan climate” rather than indicating how the voters would cast their ballots in the 2020 election.
But the data does suggest that taking a strong stand on trade deals, China and other countries “is having an impact on [Trump’s] numbers overall,” Wilson said.
The pollster went on to explain that the reason Biden, who jumped into the race just weeks ago, is leading in two states and is just slightly behind in four others is because he’s “benefiting from a bit of a honeymoon period.”
“The other aspect of this is that Joe Biden tries to kick-start or restart or jump-start the Obama international apology tour,” he said.
“It again points to the fact as you see the president taking strong stands on these international trade agreements and taking strong stands on the economy to make sure it keeps humming along. It’s in those states, the Iowas, the Wisconsins, the Michigans, the Pennsylvanias where it’s going to have the strongest impact for the president.”
Trump 5, Democrats 0: So Far, Trump Is Doing What He Needs to Do to Get Reelected
Trump 5, Democrats 0: So Far, Trump Is Doing What He Needs to Do to Get Reelected
By Bob Adelmann
The New American
May 13, 2019
So far, Trump is doing what he needs to do to get reelected.
The Trump economy is benefitting “Trump country” the most, according to a study the Brookings Institution prepared for Bloomberg News:
“Jobs are growing at a faster rate in Trump country than they are in the Democratic-leaning urban and coastal areas….
During the first 21 months of Donald Trump’s presidency, the 2,622 mostly rural and exurban counties he won in the 2016 election added jobs at twice the pace they did during the previous two years under the Obama administration….
The uptick in Trump country is crucial to the president’s re-election chances in 2020.”
Score one for Trump.
The latest Gallup weekly tracking poll shows Trump enjoying a 91-percent approval rating among Republicans, while his overall support jumped seven percentage points. This bump followed the release of the Mueller report and more news about the expanding economy.
Another poll by WPA Intelligence shows that the president holds a critical advantage over Democrats in important states he needs to win reelection. His approval rating in Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Texas was 50 percent or higher, while in Wisconsin his support is 49 percent and in Michigan, 45 percent. Across those six states the poll confirmed Gallup’s results with a 91-percent approval rating among Republicans, 82-percent approval among conservatives, and a very respectable 46-percent approval rating among independents.
Score two for Trump.
A Brookings/Bloomberg poll looked at different sectors of the economy and learned that those industries hardest hit during the Obama years — mining, oil and gas extraction, manufacturing, and trucking — have bounced back strongly under Trump. The mining and oil and gas industry lost 247,000 jobs during Obama’s final years, but has added back 108,000 jobs during Trump’s first two years. Manufacturing suffered a slump during Obama’s final two years, adding only 63,000 jobs. Under Trump, 454,000 jobs have been added.
The trucking industry was also hard hit under Obama, with just 9,000 jobs being added during his final two years in the White House. Since January 2017, the Brookings/Bloomberg study showed that more than 60,000 new jobs have been added during Trump’s first two years.
Score three for Trump.
According to Rasmussen Reports, not only are the American people tired of the Mueller report, they don’t think the Democrats have any chance of impeaching the president or, for that matter, Attorney General William Barr or Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. According to Rasmussen, 71 percent of likely U.S. voters think the House is unlikely to impeach any of them, while just 22 percent consider impeachment as likely.
Score four for Trump.
Trump’s “four corners offense” — a basketball strategy for stalling a game to keep the opposing team from scoring — is working, to the chagrin of Richard Cherwitz. Writing in The Hill, Cherwitz complains that Trump’s strategy of not allowing former White House counsel Don McGahn and others to comply with subpoenas issued by various House committees chaired by rabid anti-Trump Democrats is working. He says it’s “a deliberate and calculated attempt to play a four corners offense.” If those committees press the matter, the issues will likely wind up in court, with decisions probably being delayed until after November 2020’s presidential election. It’s a strategy, wrote Cherwitz, of “running out the clock.”
Second, wrote Cherwitz, Trump controls the narrative through his “relentless Twitter posts.” In addition, Trump is enjoying support from both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) as they both consider the Mueller case “closed.”
Score five for Trump.
Cherwitz admitted as much: “This [strategy] poses an enormous challenge for Democrats who need to devise an effective rhetorical strategy to counter the president. Thus far, there doesn’t seem to be one.”
The Democrats continue to flail about, trying to find a strategy with some traction. Instead they propose half-crazy schemes such as the Green New Deal designed to push the country off a financial cliff, gun registration and licensing schemes that enrage the estimated 55 million gun owners who cherish their Second Amendment rights, open borders and, last but not least, Joe Biden as their leading candidate to face Trump next year.
Score: Trump 5, Democrats 0.