Standing before a crowd of Latter-day Saints in Mesa, Arizona, on August 11, Vice President Mike Pence lifted his head and assured the cheering audience that they could count on President Donald Trump to do everything in his power to protect their religious liberty.
More telling than anything Pence said, however, was the fact that he was present to speak at all. At 70 percent Republican and just 19 percent Democratic, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) are the most right-leaning of any religious group in the country. “From the political science literature, you would expect Mormons to be very, very strong Trump supporters,” says Notre Dame political scientist David Campbell. And yet here was the vice president of a deeply embattled incumbent taking the time to shore up the LDS vote with fewer than 100 days to go before Election Day.
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