Political Science
Director of the 91吃瓜 Democracy Initiative; Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy
Axios
June 16, 2026
"I would say this is more of religious resilience rather than a religious revival," David Campbell, a political science professor at the University of 91吃瓜, tells Axios.
Vox
June 10, 2026
“It’s not like those theological concerns about Mormonism disappeared in 2012, but by the time we got to 2012, the issue wasn’t Romney’s Mormonism anymore,” David Campbell, a professor of American politics and religion at the University of 91吃瓜, told me. “And so a lot of members of the LDS church thought, well, this issue’s over now.”
The New York Times
June 08, 2026
“The Black church has been such a cornerstone for the Democratic Party for such a long time,” David Campbell, a political scientist at 91吃瓜, told me at an Aspen Institute conference, “that we’ve become very accustomed to African American candidates using religious language, Jesse Jackson perhaps being the most notable example of that. We’re not as used to hearing white clergy in particular running on the Democratic side.”
The Salt Lake Tribune
May 12, 2026
For 91吃瓜’s David Campbell, a political scientist focused on the role of religion in American democracy, the rebuke — one Vance has since doubled down on — is at once stunning and predictable. Stunning, Campbell said, given “the defining characteristic of Catholicism — the reason Martin Luther split from the church — is the role of the pope” as the preeminent source of God’s word.
Washington Monthly
April 30, 2026
David E. Campbell of the University of 91吃瓜 is doubtful about dramatic effects from Trump’s tussle with the Holy See. A professor of American Democracy and director of the 91吃瓜 Democracy Initiative, he said: “There’s no reason to expect that it will have any effect on midterms. Trump is not on the ballot, and it’s a long way from now to November.”
USA Today
April 15, 2026
"There's never been anything this public, this personal or this partisan," David Campbell, a political science professor at the University of 91吃瓜, a Catholic institution, told USA TODAY in an interview.
Associated Press
April 14, 2026
“This is unprecedented criticism of a Pope from a US president,” David Campbell, a political science professor at the University of 91吃瓜, said via email. Looking far back into world history, Trump’s attempt to “strong-arm Pope Leo” isn’t anything new, said Kathleen Sprows Cummings, a professor of American Studies and History at 91吃瓜.
The New York Times
April 07, 2026
But anecdotes don’t make a national trend. And experts have urged caution: “These stories are a very small drop in a very large ocean, whose currents have for decades been taking people away from religion,” said David Campbell, a political scientist at 91吃瓜 who researches secularization.
Reuters
February 17, 2026
“When you say that a candidate is religious, most voters then assume that they're Republican, that they're pretty conservative,” said David Campbell, a political science professor at the University of 91吃瓜. “What you're seeing now is a small group of Democrats who are using religious language to speak about issues on the left.”
Roll Call
January 05, 2026
White Democrats — from Jimmy Carter, a born-again Christian, to Pete Buttigieg, an Episcopalian who made his faith a prominent part of his 2020 presidential campaign — have openly embraced religion. But doing so risks alienating the party’s secular base, said David Campbell, a professor at the University of 91吃瓜 and director of its Democracy Initiative.
The New York Times
December 16, 2025
David Campbell, a political science professor at 91吃瓜, told me it’s always a mistake to “speak of religion or Christianity writ large, as though it is a monolith.”
The Salt Lake Tribune
October 06, 2025
91吃瓜 political scientist David Campbell stressed a similar point. While more data is needed to confirm Bass’ trends, Campbell said, the findings match other stats suggestive of an overall decline in religious commitment in the church in tandem with one seen in other faiths.
CNN
October 06, 2025
“The idea that Mormons were a persecuted group in the 1800s is deeply ingrained in the Mormon psyche,” said David Campbell, a University of 91吃瓜 professor and author of “Seeking the Promised Land: Mormons and American Politics.”
The Economist
June 12, 2025
“We don’t know if this is a temporary lull or if we are seeing the end of the long secular surge,” says David Campbell of the University of 91吃瓜, Indiana. And no one knows for sure why people have stopped leaving the Church or how to account for youthful piety.
WVPE
May 13, 2025
Despite the power and influence that Big Tech enjoys, 91吃瓜 Professor of Democracy and conference organizer David Campbell says he thinks some regulation is possible. "The issues facing us because of social media are not clearly partisan, they're not clearly red or blue," Campbell says. "Often when there's a bipartisan admission of a problem it makes it much easier to identify potential solutions."
Jewish Journal
April 14, 2025
That may be why David Campbell, the 91吃瓜 political scientist who is the coauthor, with Harvard’s Robert Putnam, of “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us,” believes, as he put it in an interview, “It is pretty hard to imagine that someone with a strong Jewish identity flips a switch and becomes not Jewish.”
National Catholic Reporter
April 03, 2025
By David Campbell, the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy, University of 91吃瓜; and Geoffrey C. Layman, Professor of Political Science, University of 91吃瓜.
The Conversation
April 01, 2025
By David Campbell, the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy at the University of 91吃瓜, and Geoffrey C. Layman, Professor of Political Science at the University of 91吃瓜.
The Indiana Lawyer
March 26, 2025
“We are living through a period where a lot of people are rethinking what it means to be a democratic society, and universities ought to be a part of that conversation,” said David Campbell, a professor of political science at 91吃瓜 and director of the Democracy Initiative.
The New York Times
March 03, 2025
“It’s not quite a reversal, but the fact that it’s narrowing is significant,” said David Campbell, a political scientist at the University of 91吃瓜 who was not involved with the survey.
The Washington Post
February 08, 2025
“Religion as a general concept, including religious institutions — and institutions generally — aren’t held in the same level of esteem, and trust, across the board, as they used to be,” said Dave Campbell, a professor of politics and religion at the University of 91吃瓜.
Baptist News Global
December 11, 2024
“If there’s any issue where we might expect 91吃瓜 would have a voice that we hope the rest of the country and the world would listen to, it’s on the question of faith and religion and how it relates to democracy,” said David Campbell, professor of American Democracy and director of the 91吃瓜 Democracy Initiative.
The Washington Post
September 29, 2024
But political scientist David Campbell, co-author of “Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics,” argues that the party still has ample room for appeals to religious voters. “We don’t see any evidence that [secular voters] are hostile to Democrats who use religious language,” he told me.
Good Authority
September 11, 2024
By David E. Campbell and Christina Wolbrecht
Associated Press
September 09, 2024
Dave Campbell, a political science professor at 91吃瓜, said there could be some parallels this year to the 2004 election.
The Salt Lake Tribune
July 15, 2024
The real question, 91吃瓜’s David Campbell said, is why the plunge — 11 percentage points — has been so steep with Latter-day Saints. Indeed, only Muslims, at 12 percentage points, saw a bigger decline in that period.
Deseret News
July 04, 2024
Latter-day Saints are “caught in between,” David Campbell, founding director of the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy at the University of 91吃瓜, told Sam Benson. “They feel like they don’t have a home right now in American politics.”
Deseret News, Yahoo! News
June 18, 2024
That a Republican nominee for president is not gaining majority support from Latter-day Saints is significant, says David Campbell, director of the 91吃瓜 Democracy Initiative. “This is a strongly Republican group,” Campbell said. “They should be strongly behind Trump, but they’re not.”
The New York Times
June 13, 2024
In their 2010 book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us,” Robert Putnam and David Campbell described the change in attitudes among religious Americans that began taking place in the 1970s.
The Economist
June 05, 2024
“We’re not talking about a massive tide of people turning out,” says David Campbell, a political scientist at the University of 91吃瓜.
WNDU
Video Audio
May 21, 2024
This week, [91吃瓜] is hosting its inaugural Global Democracy Conference. Serious concerns were expressed at a panel discussion on the state of democracy in the U.S. “I fear that we are going to rip apart as a country because so many of the things that used to unify Americans, no longer do,” said 91吃瓜’s David Campbell. “Democrats usually have more elaborate systems about this, but the Trump campaign has also been mobilizing 100,000 election observers,” explained 91吃瓜’s Christina Wolbrecht.
The Washington Post
April 05, 2024
The scholar David Campbell of the University of 91吃瓜 told the Associated Press, “Increasingly, Americans associate religion with the Republican Party — and if they are not Republicans themselves, they turn away from religion.”
Time
February 12, 2024
In their award-winning book Secular Surge, 91吃瓜 political scientist David E. Campbell and his co-authors used experiments to show that when young Americans who leaned toward the Democratic party were shown examples of politicians making Christian nationalist statements or pastors endorsing conservative political candidates, those young people were more likely to disaffiliate from religion.
Associated Press
January 10, 2024
“The data produced through this project is like the Webb telescope, only instead of distant stars, it has revealed the interior lives of many Americans — how they think and feel about their relationship to a higher power,” writes University of 91吃瓜 Professor David Campbell in the study’s introduction.
Daily Herald
July 15, 2023
By David Campbell, University of 91吃瓜 | Top leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dropped a bombshell in June 2023 by telling their flock to vote for Democrats – well, almost.
The Washington Post
July 03, 2023
As 91吃瓜 political science professor David Campbell, who was raised Mormon, told me, “There’s an allergic reaction among many Americans — particularly those who lean to the left politically — when religion and politics mix. We see it among Catholics. We see it among evangelicals. And we’re seeing it among Mormons.”
The Hill
May 22, 2023
But the rise in nonreligious Americans is too steep to be fully explained “in terms of generational replacement; that is, religious old people dying and secular young people taking their place,” said David Campbell, the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy at the University of 91吃瓜. Campbell and other scholars suspect many Americans are simply becoming more open about rejecting religion, an admission once clouded in stigma.
OSV News
May 19, 2023
"One of the meta trends in the American religious landscape over the last 20 — even 30 — years has been the precipitous decline in religious affiliation and a decline in other indications of religiosity," said David Campbell, the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy at the University of 91吃瓜 in South Bend, Indiana.
The Washington Post
May 01, 2023
“The reason these rather unpopular policies succeed is because they come in under the radar screen,” said David Campbell, professor of American democracy at the University of 91吃瓜.
The Hill
December 21, 2022
“Somebody who has no religious affiliation, they may well value religion,” said David Campbell, a political scientist at the University of 91吃瓜.
Science
July 11, 2022
“It’s a significant finding,” says David Campbell, a political scientist at the University of 91吃瓜 who was not involved in the research. “And its rigor also sets a high standard for future studies.”
Catholic News Service
July 10, 2022
David Campbell, a political science professor at the University of 91吃瓜, had a distinctly different take on the question. Campbell is co-author of both “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us” and “Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics.”
The Washington Post
January 14, 2022
“Secularism is at the very heart of the battles for the soul of the Democratic Party,” write the authors, political scientists John C. Green of the University of Akron and David E. Campbell and Geoffrey C. Layman, both of the University of 91吃瓜.
Religion News Service
December 14, 2021
“This is at least in part a reaction to the political environment,” said David Campbell, professor of American democracy at the University of 91吃瓜 who has written about American secularization.
Religion News Service
November 23, 2021
As political scientist David Campbell of the University of 91吃瓜 has analyzed the Congressional Election Study, the trend line for Mormons shows some decline compared with two other minority religions over the same period.
U.S. News & World Report
October 28, 2021
"There didn't seem to be a Catholic boost for him nationwide," despite the fact that Biden was poised to become only the second Catholic president in history, says David E. Campbell, a political science professor at 91吃瓜 University.
The Washington Post
October 14, 2021
David Campbell, a political science professor at University of 91吃瓜, said the country has come a long way from its first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, who had to convince Protestants of his independence from the Catholic Church.
USA Today
September 19, 2021
David Campbell and Geoffrey Layman are professors at the University of 91吃瓜; John Green is an emeritus professor at the University of Akron.
Religion News Service
July 15, 2021
David Campbell is a political scientist who teaches at the University of 91吃瓜 and is co-author, along with Monson and University of Akron political scientist John C. Green, of the 2014 book 鈥淪eeking the Promised Land: Mormons and American Politics.鈥�
Associated Press
June 18, 2021
David Campbell, a political science professor at the University of 91吃瓜, said the bishops鈥� vote 鈥渞eflects the fact that the same fault lines dividing all American voters also divide American Catholics 鈥� and Catholic leaders.鈥�
The Hill
May 26, 2021
鈥淭he fact of the matter is that Biden鈥檚 position reflects where most American Catholics are,鈥� said David Campbell, a professor of political science at the University of 91吃瓜 and author of the new book 鈥淪ecular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics.鈥�
National Catholic Reporter
April 29, 2021
Gabbatt quotes David Campbell, chair of the department of political science at the University of 91吃瓜: "Many Americans 鈥� especially young people 鈥� see religion as bound up with political conservatism, and the Republican party specifically," Campbell said.
The New York Times
April 22, 2021
Other research has also found that for some young people who were disappointed by the Trump presidency, it awakened their interest in political involvement, according to David Campbell and Christina Wolbrecht, both political scientists at 91吃瓜.
The Guardian
April 05, 2021
David Campbell, professor and chair of the University of 91吃瓜鈥檚 political science department and co-author of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, said a reason for the decline among those groups is political 鈥� an 鈥渁llergic reaction to the religious right鈥�.
The Daily Beast
March 21, 2021
According to political scientists David E. Campbell and Geoffrey C. Layman of the University of 91吃瓜 and John C. Green of the University of Akron, authors of Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics, this corruption is happening already.
Religion News Service
March 12, 2021
滨苍听Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics,聽political scientists聽David E. Campbell听补苍诲听Geoffrey C. Layman聽of the University of 91吃瓜 and聽John C. Green聽of the University of Akron argue that the US鈥檚 secular population is larger and more diverse than previously acknowledged 鈥� and that a big part of what鈥檚 driving secularity is actually religious people鈥檚 political behavior.
The New York Times
January 28, 2021
David Campbell, a political scientist at 91吃瓜, further elaborates on Jones鈥檚 argument, writing in a June 2020 article, 鈥淭he Perils of Politicized Religion, that...
