Gastón Espinosa, 2016-17 James Madison Program William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life; Arthur V. Stoughton Professor of Religion, Claremont McKenna College

Professor Espinosa explores the religious influences on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and the critical role of race and religion in the 2016 election. He will expose the ways in which candidates are leveraging race and religion to garner support from diverse voting constituencies from across the nation and how they are doing as a result with key voting constituencies like Latinos, Blacks, Catholics, Evangelicals, and others.  He will conclude by focusing on key strategies each candidate could take to win over a growing share of the racial-ethnic and religious electorates.

Gastón Espinosa, 2016-17 James Madison Program William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life, is the Arthur V. Stoughton Professor of Religion at Claremont McKenna College and co-editor of the Columbia University Press Series in Religion and Politics. Espinosa served as president of La Comunidad of Hispanic Scholars of Religion at the American Academy of Religion.  He is the author/editor of eight books, including Latino Pentecostals in America: Faith and Politics in Action (Harvard, 2014); Religion, Race, and Barack Obama's New Democratic Pluralism (Routledge, 2012); Religion, Race, and the American Presidency (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), Religion and the American Presidency: George Washington to George W. Bush (Columbia, 2009); Mexican American Religions: Spirituality, Activism and Culture (Duke, 2008); and U.S. Latino Religions and Civic Activism in the United States (Oxford, 2005). He has also directed three national surveys on U.S. Latino religions and politics in 2000, 2008, and 2012, surveying more than 7,000 Latinos. He is currently researching and writing Latino Religions and Politics in American Public Lifeand The Spiritual Impulse of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara. 

Presented in recognition of National Hispanic Heritage Month