Has Partisanship Subsumed Religion? Reassessing Religious Effects on School Prayer in U.S. Politics

Religion and partisanship remain deeply intertwined in contemporary American politics, especially in public debates on religious expression in state institutions. This study examined whether religious identity and behavior continue to influence public attitudes independently of party affiliation in a highly polarized environment. Drawing on the latest 2023–2024 Pew Religious Landscape Study, the analysis examined support for teacher-led Christian prayer in public schools—a constitutionally contentious issue—through survey-weighted logistic regression models. The models included key religious predictors—tradition, born-again identity, and church attendance—alongside controls for political ideology and party identification. While Republican partisanship is the single strongest predictor of support, religious identity retains a significant and independent effect. Evangelical Protestants, as well as highly observant individuals across traditions, consistently show greater support for school prayer than their less religious or differently affiliated co-partisans. These residual effects point to the persistence of religious subcultures within each party coalition. By identifying such within-party variation, this study contributes to broader debates on the evolving boundaries of secular governance and the complex interplay between religion and partisan identity.