Really great take here! Amazing research showing something that hasn’t really been dug into. Yes - Utah is shifting blue. No - Utah is not more liberal, it’s a reaction against Trump. This quote in particular nails it: “The most plausible explanation is that LDS institutional culture — its emphasis on civility, institutional trust, and character-based conservatism — created a values conflict with Trump-era Republicanism that simply doesn’t exist for White Evangelicals.”
"Is religious decline causing LDS members to leave the Republican party — or is aversion to Trump-era Republicanism accelerating religious disengagement? Or maybe there is a third thing that pulls on both of these?" I fall in the 46-65 year-old category and can resonate with the aversion of the Trump-era debacle. Having been raised LDS, in a very conservative John Birch/Phyllis Schlafly driven "I am the Priesthood" home, it was a tough road execrating this warped sense of conservatism from my mind and life. In my later years I have become one of the "everyone else" group. My move hasn't come so much because of secularization, (although it might be that open secularization is causing a deeper and more poignant thoughts about what it means to be human), but more out of a fear of seeing our faith and leaders take a more "we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings" type of approach. When a faith that claims to believe, teach, and live the teachings of Christ but fails to take a stand against the corruption that is so blatantly being paraded in the public forum, it causes one to take a second look. Why is it so difficult to speak up? To stand up? Is it that they are really concerned about the values and principles that are espoused from the pulpit, or is it a reputation they want to protect in a volatile political climate? I find it intriguing and encouraging that the Pope took a stand. It also made me wonder and question why the LDS leaders can't. Call it secularism, I call it clarity and it causes questions and concern. So, a third thing that pulls? The fear of wondering what the faith really stand for.
I wanted to comment in mostly the same terms as you. I have felt exactly the same about Pope Leo in contrast to our own church leaders. It caused me to question; Where is the moral fortitude of our faith’s leadership and/or do our faith’s leadership embrace the amorality and inclusivity of federal and state GOP representatives? (I.e. church leadership allowing ICE to recruit on BYU campus after the murders of Perretti and Good)
I would also add another nuance that explains some of shift away from devout status. In 2016 and again in 2024 when a sizable (vocal) percentage of devout members embraced Donald Trump with his we’ll know amoral behavior, it made many question the character of those we are worshipping with and whether church teachings had led the “devout” to have good moral character as a practical matter. Leaving many to feel less inclined to associate and to be associated with them from an external perspective. This has caused many to drop out of the “devout” status.
What your data seems to show is not just a political shift, but a change in how Latter-day Saints relate to identity itself. If many members still hold similar views but are less willing to call themselves Republican, then the deeper change may not be ideology so much as affiliation, trust, and what people feel comfortable attaching themselves to.
That also matters because religious commitment is harder to measure than party ID. Church attendance and prayer matter, of course, but faithfulness is more than visible practice or group identity. It is also about what kind of person someone is becoming over time. Repentance, covenant loyalty, and spiritual seriousness do not map neatly onto a political label, which means political movement and spiritual movement are not always the same thing.
So the most interesting question here may be bigger than “why are Latter-day Saints moving left?” It may be whether the old bonds between belief, belonging, and identity are weakening more generally. If so, then the political shift is real, but it may also be a sign of something deeper happening underneath it.
I definitely think you're on to something with perhaps "identity itself is changing." I think a lot of people accept we are entering an era of skepticism surrounding institutions, but do we talk about how skepticism of institutions affects identity? When our institutional trust crumbles, how do we then identify ourselves? (I'm thinking people identifying themselves through their college, religion, nation, etc.) Thanks for leaving your thoughts about this and helping me think through this, too.
It seems to me that many LDS "conservatives" have always claimed that label as a de facto setting, not one they fully understood or ideologically embraced. The views were held lightly, so the identity was superficial. I'm obviously not including the hardline John Birch society types. Even the so-called "anti-feminists" are talking out of both sides of their mouths on it for the most part. They certainly don't agree with those Evangelical churches that require a wife to submit or bar women from speaking in church. We need look no further than Mitt Romney to encapsulate the Mormon "wife guy." These are not ideologically aligned with the performatively macho, p*ssy-grabbing, boastful GOP. In addition, a whole lot of Mormons have always seemed more ideologically libertarian than conservative in my experience.
But it's equally true that once you allow yourself to admit that you aren't actually ideologically aligned with today's Republican, it's nearly impossible to unsee the Church's cowardice in calling out corruption (the bothsidesism regarding protests against police brutality, failure to acknowledge Biden's win timely, etc.), and the Church's leaders' own authoritarian tendencies, using our tithing dollars in their hobby horse causes that might in fact go against our own values.
Is it that members are becoming secularized or that members are seeing how secular the Church is, how political, and how aligned with values we don't share some of its leaders are?
I think there’s another angle, described by Ryan Burge’s new book, The Vanishing Church. Traditional Christianity’s shift to the right is partly driven by a two step process in which 1) churches polarize by politics, and then 2) the more liberal members largely drop out of religion. Step 1 is shifting the Evangelicals to the right by a sorting mechanism. Step 2 is shifting everyone else to the right as the more liberal Christians then drop out and become “nones”. Part of this is a doctrinal thinning of more liberal mainline denominations, which then has less ability to hold and change the hearts of its members. The LDS, with geographical congregations and a centralized hierarchical structure, cannot polarize in that way, so liberals and conservatives are stuck together in “thick religion”, avoiding the collapse of the liberal membership seen elsewhere.
Thinking about it more, the sorting mechanism of The Vanishing Church is probably best for Evangelicals and Mainline. And maybe White Catholics are also shifting right as the liberals abandon ship. The Black and Hispanic Christian right shift probably reflects a real political shift toward Trump in the last election more than just sorting.
Really great take here! Amazing research showing something that hasn’t really been dug into. Yes - Utah is shifting blue. No - Utah is not more liberal, it’s a reaction against Trump. This quote in particular nails it: “The most plausible explanation is that LDS institutional culture — its emphasis on civility, institutional trust, and character-based conservatism — created a values conflict with Trump-era Republicanism that simply doesn’t exist for White Evangelicals.”
Well done! 👏👏
"Is religious decline causing LDS members to leave the Republican party — or is aversion to Trump-era Republicanism accelerating religious disengagement? Or maybe there is a third thing that pulls on both of these?" I fall in the 46-65 year-old category and can resonate with the aversion of the Trump-era debacle. Having been raised LDS, in a very conservative John Birch/Phyllis Schlafly driven "I am the Priesthood" home, it was a tough road execrating this warped sense of conservatism from my mind and life. In my later years I have become one of the "everyone else" group. My move hasn't come so much because of secularization, (although it might be that open secularization is causing a deeper and more poignant thoughts about what it means to be human), but more out of a fear of seeing our faith and leaders take a more "we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings" type of approach. When a faith that claims to believe, teach, and live the teachings of Christ but fails to take a stand against the corruption that is so blatantly being paraded in the public forum, it causes one to take a second look. Why is it so difficult to speak up? To stand up? Is it that they are really concerned about the values and principles that are espoused from the pulpit, or is it a reputation they want to protect in a volatile political climate? I find it intriguing and encouraging that the Pope took a stand. It also made me wonder and question why the LDS leaders can't. Call it secularism, I call it clarity and it causes questions and concern. So, a third thing that pulls? The fear of wondering what the faith really stand for.
I wanted to comment in mostly the same terms as you. I have felt exactly the same about Pope Leo in contrast to our own church leaders. It caused me to question; Where is the moral fortitude of our faith’s leadership and/or do our faith’s leadership embrace the amorality and inclusivity of federal and state GOP representatives? (I.e. church leadership allowing ICE to recruit on BYU campus after the murders of Perretti and Good)
I would also add another nuance that explains some of shift away from devout status. In 2016 and again in 2024 when a sizable (vocal) percentage of devout members embraced Donald Trump with his we’ll know amoral behavior, it made many question the character of those we are worshipping with and whether church teachings had led the “devout” to have good moral character as a practical matter. Leaving many to feel less inclined to associate and to be associated with them from an external perspective. This has caused many to drop out of the “devout” status.
What your data seems to show is not just a political shift, but a change in how Latter-day Saints relate to identity itself. If many members still hold similar views but are less willing to call themselves Republican, then the deeper change may not be ideology so much as affiliation, trust, and what people feel comfortable attaching themselves to.
That also matters because religious commitment is harder to measure than party ID. Church attendance and prayer matter, of course, but faithfulness is more than visible practice or group identity. It is also about what kind of person someone is becoming over time. Repentance, covenant loyalty, and spiritual seriousness do not map neatly onto a political label, which means political movement and spiritual movement are not always the same thing.
So the most interesting question here may be bigger than “why are Latter-day Saints moving left?” It may be whether the old bonds between belief, belonging, and identity are weakening more generally. If so, then the political shift is real, but it may also be a sign of something deeper happening underneath it.
I definitely think you're on to something with perhaps "identity itself is changing." I think a lot of people accept we are entering an era of skepticism surrounding institutions, but do we talk about how skepticism of institutions affects identity? When our institutional trust crumbles, how do we then identify ourselves? (I'm thinking people identifying themselves through their college, religion, nation, etc.) Thanks for leaving your thoughts about this and helping me think through this, too.
.
I only have anecdote to back me up but I see people taking doctrine more seriously which leads them to more left-leaning policy positions.
It seems to me that many LDS "conservatives" have always claimed that label as a de facto setting, not one they fully understood or ideologically embraced. The views were held lightly, so the identity was superficial. I'm obviously not including the hardline John Birch society types. Even the so-called "anti-feminists" are talking out of both sides of their mouths on it for the most part. They certainly don't agree with those Evangelical churches that require a wife to submit or bar women from speaking in church. We need look no further than Mitt Romney to encapsulate the Mormon "wife guy." These are not ideologically aligned with the performatively macho, p*ssy-grabbing, boastful GOP. In addition, a whole lot of Mormons have always seemed more ideologically libertarian than conservative in my experience.
But it's equally true that once you allow yourself to admit that you aren't actually ideologically aligned with today's Republican, it's nearly impossible to unsee the Church's cowardice in calling out corruption (the bothsidesism regarding protests against police brutality, failure to acknowledge Biden's win timely, etc.), and the Church's leaders' own authoritarian tendencies, using our tithing dollars in their hobby horse causes that might in fact go against our own values.
Is it that members are becoming secularized or that members are seeing how secular the Church is, how political, and how aligned with values we don't share some of its leaders are?
I think there’s another angle, described by Ryan Burge’s new book, The Vanishing Church. Traditional Christianity’s shift to the right is partly driven by a two step process in which 1) churches polarize by politics, and then 2) the more liberal members largely drop out of religion. Step 1 is shifting the Evangelicals to the right by a sorting mechanism. Step 2 is shifting everyone else to the right as the more liberal Christians then drop out and become “nones”. Part of this is a doctrinal thinning of more liberal mainline denominations, which then has less ability to hold and change the hearts of its members. The LDS, with geographical congregations and a centralized hierarchical structure, cannot polarize in that way, so liberals and conservatives are stuck together in “thick religion”, avoiding the collapse of the liberal membership seen elsewhere.
Thinking about it more, the sorting mechanism of The Vanishing Church is probably best for Evangelicals and Mainline. And maybe White Catholics are also shifting right as the liberals abandon ship. The Black and Hispanic Christian right shift probably reflects a real political shift toward Trump in the last election more than just sorting.