Latter-day Saint college students are split between Republican and Democrat more equitably than any other group when looking at political partisanship by religious affiliation.
But they’re also the most Republican.
That’s according to demographer Ryan Burge’s analysis of Foundation for for Individual Rights and Expression data. Burge looked at college students ages 18 to 25 and made a graph of political self-identification by religious affiliation.
Here’s a closer look at Burge’s data analysis, the broader context of where a similar age range is politically and why Latter-day Saint college students may be the most Republican.
Political partisanship by religious affiliation
Main take-aways:
- Latter-day Saints are the only group with a Republican plurality.
- Atheists, agnostics, Jews and nones are the most likely to favor Democrats.
- Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and “others” have the strongest contingents of independents.
- Across the entire data set, 22% identified as Republicans.
Dig deeper:
The group with the strongest contingent of Republicans was Latter-day Saints (45%) with the remainder identifying as Democrat (39%) or independent (16%). Latter-day Saints are the only group to have a plurality of students identify as Republican.
The other groups all had a plurality of students identifying as Democrat, though Protestants also had a significant number of students identifying as Republican (42%) with the others identifying as Democrat (43%) or independent (16%).
A little more than half of Catholics affiliate with Democrats (54%) and a smaller of them consider themselves Republican (30%). Half of Orthodox religionists identify as Democrat (50%) with the remainder as independents (19%) or Republicans (30%).
Among those who identified as “Just Christian,” a plurality consider themselves Democrat (47%) with some Republicans (33%) and Independents (21%).
Muslims had the highest percentage of students identifying as independent (24%), followed by Buddhists (23%), Hindus (23%) and “other” (23%).
Atheists were the ones most likely to affiliate themselves with Democrats (81%) with agnostics (80%), Jews (75%) and “nothing in particular” (70%) trailing behind them.
“I think it’s pretty important to point out that there’s just no group that is anywhere close to as politically unified as atheists on the right side of the political spectrum among college students,” Burge wrote.
Zooming out: data in context
The aforementioned data analysis gives insight into the relationship between education, political self-identification and religious affiliation for college students ages 18 to 25. It’s important to note that this group does not make up the majority of the demographic.
College enrollment statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics show that around 38% of those between the ages of 18 and 24 were enrolled in school in 2021. This means it’s likely the majority of the age demographic does not attend college.
So, how does the survey data targeting college students compare to research about the overall population?
Using 2022 data from the Cooperative Election Study, Burge found that 47% of Latter-day Saints born in the 1990s identified as Republicans when asked. For those born in the 2000s, it was slightly higher at 49%. While this age range and wording of the question differs from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s data set, it shows that Latter-day Saint college students are more Democratic, but mostly consistent with Latter-day Saints in a similar age range overall.
Zooming out further and looking at the 18 to 25 age group, here are some additional trends.
Those who identify as total liberal in ideology are the plurality (48%) followed by total conservative (33%) and moderate (32%), according to a NBC News poll.
A SocialSphere, Murmuration and Walton Family Foundation poll found that 30% of Gen Zers (those born between 1997 and 2012) aligned with Democrats, followed by independents (28%) and Republicans (24%). The Harvard Youth Poll (note the age span was 18 to 29) found that a plurality in this age range identify as politically moderate (44%) with the remainder as liberal (30%) or conservative (24%).
The main takeaway is that those in the 18 to 25 age range are more likely to consider themselves Democrat or independent than Republican, but Latter-day Saints — whether college students or not — tend to buck this trend.
While Burge observed a “seismic political shift” among younger Latter-day Saints that suggests a move toward the left, they are still more conservative than their counterparts of different faiths or no faith.
This may correspond to broader trends.
The Republican Party has a significantly higher percentage of people who identify as religious (61%) when compared to Democrats (37%), according to Gallup polling data from July 2023.
The GOP’s trouble with Latter-day Saints seems to correlate with some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expressing a negative view of former President Donald Trump (51%) and a strong preference for a GOP presidential nominee to have an ability to appeal to more moderate voters (73%).