Posted on 11/06/2004 7:29:33 AM PST by FreeRadical
Catholics and moderately religious voters were just as important as very religious 'Born Agains'
By Steven Waldman and John Green
The congealing conventional wisdom is that super-religious, born-again Protestants—a.k.a. the religious right—carried President Bush to victory in 2004. A new Beliefnet analysis of the election data reveals this is only half right.
There was indeed a flood of evangelicals to the polls—but it now appears that a dramatic shift in the Catholic vote was just as important and, in crucial states, probably more so.
In addition, the big gain for Bush was probably among the moderately religious—and the secular—not the heavy-duty religious voters who attend religious services weekly or more.
Bush’s strong performance among Catholics, it turns out, was absolutely crucial to his victory. Bush won Catholics 52%-47% this time, while Al Gore carried them 50%-46% in 2000. If Kerry had done as well as Gore, he would have had about a million more votes nationwide. According to Gallup Polls, only one Democrat since 1952 (Walter Mondale in 1984) lost the Catholic vote by this large a margin.
The Catholic impact was even more stark in key states. In Ohio, Bush got 55% of the Catholic vote in 2004 compared to just under 50% of them in 2000. That means a shift of 172,000 votes into the Republican column. Bush won the state by just 136,000 votes.
In Florida, Catholics made up 26% of the electorate in 2000. This year, they made up 28%. In 2000, 54% of Catholics went for Bush; in 2004, 57% of them voted for him. The combination of those two factors meant a gain of 400,000 voters in the Sunshine State—about Bush's margin of victory.
Another surprising finding: Bush did not actually improve his standing among people who go to church weekly or more often—in fact, his share of those voters went down slightly.
There was a big increase in the portion of the electorate made up of weekly churchgoers in the South—and yet nationally the figure didn’t budge, indicating that regular churchgoers actually played a smaller role outside the South.
Here again, the pattern was apparent in two decisive battleground states. In 2000, 45% of Ohio voters were people who attended church weekly or more often. In 2004, that percentage actually declined to 40%—meaning regular churchgoers were, relatively, less important in the outcome. Amazingly, Bush's support among people in Ohio who never attended services soared from 35% up to 55%.
The same thing happened in Florida. In 2000, 43% of voter attended services weekly or more often. This year, the portion dropped to 40%.
Nationally, Bush did improve his standing among those who attend worship services monthly instead of weekly (his share of this vote rose from 41% to 45%.) A possible explanation: contrary to the common stereotype, many evangelical and "born-again" Christians do not attend religious services weekly. It was with this group that GOP outreach efforts may have borne the most fruit.
Amusingly, the biggest improvement in Bush’s performance actually came from those who never go to church. He won 36% of this group compared to 29% last time.
While it would be not quite accurate to say that Bush rode to office on a wave of atheism and secularism, these patterns reveal the complexity of Bush coalition—it was not just the "religious right" in 2004. None of this is to suggest that white church-going evangelicals didn’t play a significant role. They were probably particularly important in growing Bush’s overall popular vote and in Bush’s narrow victory in Iowa, where close to a third of the voters this time were evangelical Christians.
Though changes in the wording of exit polls make it difficult to directly compare the evangelical vote this election and last, a Beliefnet analysis based on studies of earlier exit polls indicates that 58% of white evangelical Protestants voted this time, compared to 55% in 2000. In addition, the evangelicals who did vote went for Bush by a greater margin–78% rather than 71% in 2000. The improved performance among those evangelicals who voted proved to be just as important as the turnout.
The combination of those two factors–the higher evangelical turnout and the greater margin–meant that Bush did beat his target of drawing in four million evangelical voters, according to Beliefnet’s analysis.
That didn’t lead to an electoral college landslide for Bush for two reasons. First, a disproportionate share of the surge appears to be in the southern states that he already had locked up.
Second, evangelical turnout was at least partly offset by increased turnout from pro-Kerry groups. Kerry got roughly two million more votes from 18-29-year-olds than Gore did in 2000. He received approximately 1.6 million more votes from African Americans than Gore did. Churchgoers voted in greater numbers–but so did secular voters.
There is much we still don’t know, and it should be noted that this analysis was based on the very same exit polls that are now being criticized. But it is clear that the Bush victory was not just the result of regular church-going, conservative, born-again Protestants.
What’s more, these exit polls do not indicate why Catholics might have shifted to Bush and to what extent “moral values”–whether in general or related to abortion or gay marriage–might have played a role.
The findings do potentially affect the internal discussion beginning in Democratic circles over how to win back the White House. Appealing to middle-of-the-road Catholics, including Hispanics, may be the key to crafting a new, winning agenda.
The Bush campaign made enormous efforts to win the Catholic vote this time, appointing 50,000 “team leaders” at the local level. The president made a point of visiting the Pope (in June 2004) and putting his picture on the campaign website with a headline "Catholics for Bush." Pro-life groups ran advertising in Catholic areas attacking pro-choice positions.
Though Kerry is the first Catholic presidential nominee since JFK, Bush’s views on abortion and gay marriage were more in line with the Catholic hierarchy. Efforts by liberal Catholic groups and the Kerry campaign to court them were puny by comparison to pro-Bush efforts.
Other factors beyond religion played a major role. Bush’s surprising victory among seniors and his increased strength among Hispanics were among the most important.
Steven Waldman is Editor-in-Chief of Beliefnet. John Green is a professor of political science, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute at University of Akron, author of numerous books on religion and politics, and a Beliefnet Contributing Editor.
COPYRIGHT Beliefnet.com
Posted for Non-Commercial, Educational Purposes Only
GUEST OPINION: Disgusted that Blue States Have Catholics to Thank
Catholics and Orthodox: Thank Mary for Her Intercession
Catholics Put Bush Over the Top in Key States
This is getting to be old news for us in the truth based world / red counties, but the leftists in the blue counties should hear it again.
Would they villify Mr. & Mrs. Washington, devout Baptists, for example, who would never, in a million years, vote for abortion or gay marriage? Would they eviscerate Mr. & Mrs. Hernandez, devout Catholics, Mr. & Mrs. Patel, devout Hindus or Mr. & Mrs. Al-Suadi, devout Muslims, all 100% anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage?
Somehow, I don't think so. It COULD also be that those "religious right born agains" actually AREN'T all Republicans. There COULD be some Republicans in those mentioned groups.
The bias COULD be just along party lines.
I detect some...oh, never mind, you get my drift.
Does this mean the author considers the Prez a super-religious, born-again Protestant—a.k.a. member of the religious right?
Heck of a label...huh!
I'd like to see some data on the impact that voters of Vietnamese background had on the election. I was an election clerk on Tuesday, and these people (with names like Le, Tran, Nguyen, etc) were out in full force. By the time 7pm arrived, I showed a turnout of 75% in the book of registered voters that I handled, but it was close to 100% for those with Vietnamese surnames. They cannot stand Kerry.
I need to point out, however, that I am not in a swing state, so what I saw did not turn the election. Not like what we saw with the voting block of Cubans in Florida for the 2000 election -- now that REALLY had an impact on the outcome.
That said, it seems to be a very good website to visit.
texas is the reason (277 posts) Sat Nov-06-04 10:39 AM Original message
folks, it's time to let the republicans have the jesus vote.
this whole rural/urban, metro/retro schizm could really be boiled down to one question: "will god protect america, no matter what we do?"
if you answered yes to this question, you are a fundie. these people have shown us that common sense and reality-based government does not matter so much, because jesus will take care of the loose ends.
They are convienently relieved of responsibility for the big thngs, so they can feel free to vote about gays, guns, abortion, whatever. we need to be the voice of reason, of science, of common f***ing sense - for everyone else.
there is no need to stoop to the fundie's level, they will NEVER vote for us anyway. we need to be the party for those who think that our policies and actions have very real repurcussions, and that our fate as a nation IS IN OUR OWN HANDS!
i really think that the fundies have scared the living s**t out of a lot of right-leaning people this year. we need to EMPHASIZE our distinction from them, not try to court them. we need to ostracize the fundies as the raving lunatics they are.
let us demonize them the way they demonize us as "liberal elitists".
we are the age of enlightenment, they are the dark ages. let us draw our distinctions and really win some votes.
Now if we can get a majority of Jews to come to our side, we can drive the stake into the heart of the Fascist/commie/socialist/evil dums.
To all you DUmmies out there: Your party DID EMPHASIZE your distinction from us - that's why you lost!!!!
I'm a secularist. I like my way of life and I find DU post quite offensive. Liberals underestimate the dangers of Islamic-fascism. They will appease them until our way of life is ruined for good. I voted for Bush because I feel his administration will safe guard our way of life. The Islamic-fascist will take over like in Europe and hopefully one day install a theocracy. We will not have freedom speech or freedom from religion. We will be murdered because we are non-believers. The liberals have a hard time understanding that concept. Who wants to live in the middle ages? Liberals think they are so enlighten but very naive. They can't be trusted with our national security at this time. I'm glad the common folk spoke out for Bush.
I can explain my belief in God without any help from the Bible or any other religious reference. And because I can logically and rationally do this, I consider myself to be "enlightened" and an "intellectual".
The liberal leftists will NEVER understand because they refuse to open their minds to other possibilities.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.