Faith, geography and the ballot box: Analyzing voting trends in the 2020 US presidential election through spatial and confessional correlations

Abstract

From five parameters at the state level: percentage of Catholic adherents (CATH-ADH), average number of adherents per congregation (ADH/CON), number of congregations per capita (CON/POP) and voting percentages from the 2020 election for Trump (TRUMP) and Biden (BIDEN), we obtain six Pearson correlation coefficients at the national and regional levels. These yield a significant positive correlation between CATH-ADH and BIDEN, as well as for ADH/CON and BIDEN, while the opposite is true for TRUMP. Conversely, there is a negative correlation between CON/POP and BIDEN and a positive one for TRUMP. The interplay between these, as well as important geographical and confessional spatial autocorrelations measured using Moran’s index, show the influence of religion on the 2020 election among two main lines: Catholic support for Biden and Trump support from atomized yet smaller congregations.