Will Mormons Reject a Thoroughly Immoral Trump?

Like white evangelicals members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints ("Mormons") face a test in 2020 that will reveal whether they truly adhere to the values the claim to support or instead are little better than the biblical Pharisees.  If they are the moral people they claim to be, they should find it impossible to vote for the thoroughly immoral Donald Trump.  If they vote for Trump, it is safe to assume they are complete hypocrites, perhaps racists, and have jettisoned any claim for moral authority. In short, 2020 represents a time where one either votes for morality or votes against immorality personified by Trump.  If you support children in cages you vote for Trump.  If you find that abhorrent, you vote for Biden.  If you turn a blind eye to the sexual assault of women, you vote for Trump. If you oppose it, you vote against Trump. It's a black and white choice and blather about lower taxes and other excuses simply do not excuse a vote for immorality.  A piece in Politico looks at the contest for Mormon votes.  Here are article excerpts: 

In 2016, Mormons rejected Donald Trump in numbers unheard of for a Republican nominee — viewing the thrice-married, immigrant-bashing Republican as an affront to their values.

In 2020, [Trump] the president is going all-out to change their minds — a little-noticed effort that could make or break him in Arizona and Nevada, home to more than a half-million Latter-day Saints combined. Joe Biden's campaign, sensing an unlikely opening for a Democrat, is also targeting Mormons in the pair of Western swing states.

Before Trump became the party standard bearer, Mormons had been among the most loyal GOP voters in the country. A 2010 Gallup survey found that “Mormons are both the most Republican and the most conservative of any of the major religious groups in the U.S. today.” But many Mormons found Trump blasphemous, and the Church itself made thinly veiled statements condemning the candidate’s rhetoric on immigration and religious freedom.

Mormon support for the Republican ticket dropped from 80 percent in 2004 and 78 percent in 2012, to 61 percent in 2016, even as most other Christians moved further to the right, according to Pew.

Mindful of the community's sway, the Trump and Biden campaigns are vying for the Mormon vote to an extent neither party has done in a generation.

Trump dispatched Vice President Mike Pence to Mesa, Ariz. last month for the kickoff of “Latter-day Saints for Trump.” The president’s campaign is planning more events in the coming weeks with prominent Mormons, including former Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, and McDaniel. The campaign and Republican National Committee have scheduled trips to Arizona for out-of-state Mormons to canvass fellow church members for votes. On Saturday, Trump traveled to Nevada — a state that Democrats had been confident was in their column — and he will be in Arizona this week.

Biden’s campaign has rolled out its own prominent Mormon supporters, led by former Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, a longtime Trump critic who said he believes Biden will “approach the constitutional role [of president] with the reverence and dignity it deserves.” The campaign is also prepping LDS volunteers to make calls to Mormon-heavy areas seeking support for Biden.

Some Mormons in Arizona have formed their own political action committee, earnestly named: “Arizona Republicans Who Believe In Treating Others With Respect.” The most prominent Mormon politician in the country, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), has said he will not vote for Trump, though he has not endorsed Biden.

Biden’s advisers argue that his message of restoring civility will appeal to LDS members who, like Romney and Flake, are offended by Trump’s conduct over the past four years.

“I don't understand how a member of the LDS Church could support somebody that is amoral and has shown his amorality from the time he came into our view,” former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada and member of the church, said in an interview.

McMullin, who still opposes Trump, said he thinks some of his supporters will vote for the president but that “most people who voted third party in 2016 will be supporting Biden in this election.” He argued that some Republicans voted for Trump “out of habit” but have since soured on him.

A Biden official conceded that Trump will likely improve on his 2016 performance among Mormons, but that the Democrat's goal is to significantly limit those gains. Some longtime LDS Democratic organizers said Biden has already improved on Hillary Clinton’s efforts, which they said were too focused on Utah.

"It’s not going to be shocking that Trump wins the Mormon vote but if it’s 10-15 points off of the norm in Nevada and Arizona, that’s a big deal," said Quin Monson, a partner at the Utah-based polling firm Y2 Analytics and a political science professor at the Church-funded Brigham Young University. "It’s the equivalent of Republicans suddenly getting a quarter of the African-American vote, and I do think it’s within the realm of possibility. They've not come around completely on Donald Trump."

Trump is trailing Biden by about 5 points in Arizona, according to polling averages, and LDS voters could be decisive if the race tightens. In 2018, Kyrsten Sinema won massive Maricopa County — which includes the historically Mormon suburb of Mesa — becoming the first Democrat to win an Arizona Senate seat since the 1980s.

The public embrace of Trump by some LDS members has created fissures in a community that was once largely monolithic in its politics. Former Arizona state senator Bob Worsley, a Republican and the founder of SkyMall, recently began publicly organizing for Biden after he felt the Trump-aligned LDS group that hosted Pence last month implied that Church leadership supported the president.

“I’ve never voted for a Democrat in my life but we think this man is an abomination,” Worsley said. He thinks more Mormons will vote for Biden than in 2016 because “some found Hillary’s husband Bill a similar lack of an example of a good moral person.”

The Church’s leadership, which members watch closely for political signals, has strained to stay neutral in the race even as it continues to push back against Trump on immigration. In 2018, the church protested the administration’s policies that resulted in the separation of families at the border.

“At the end of the day, President Trump more reflects the policy values of most Mormons than Joe Biden,” said Mike Noble, partner and chief of research for Phoenix-based OH Predictive Insights polling firm. But Trump would be "mistaken" to think he has a lock on LDS voters, he added.

“Whether they can stomach his erratic behavior," Noble said, "will likely be the deciding factor for many Mormons.”