Posted on 12/07/2012 12:49:23 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president this year, received the lowest level of support among evangelicals of any Republican presidential candidate since Bob Dole in 1996, according to a report by Barna Group, a Christian polling organization.
Romney received the support of 81 percent of evangelicals, compared to 88 percent for John McCain in 2008, and 83 percent and 85 percent, respectively, for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Only Dole received a lower level of evangelical support at 74 percent in Barna's polling.
Barna's results differ from other polls showing Romney received a higher proportion of the evangelical vote than McCain. The exit polls for the National Election Pool, for instance, showed Romney getting a share of the white evangelical vote that was four percentage points higher, 78 to 74 percent, than McCain. The differences can be explained, though, in how "evangelical" is defined for the different polls.
In the National Election Pool, an evangelical is simply one who self-identifies as evangelical or "born again." For Barna, an evangelical is defined by a set of theological beliefs.
A "born again Christian," in Barna's categorization, is one who has made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important to them today and who believes that they will go to Heaven when they die because they had confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.
An "evangelical" meets all those criteria plus affirms an additional seven theological beliefs consistent with evangelical doctrine. These include questions about proselytizing, the existence of Satan, salvation through grace, the divinity of Christ, the authority of scripture, and God's omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. "Born again" and "evangelical" are not dependent upon worship attendance or denomination.
Barna's other religious categories include "notional Christians," who identify as Christian but do not meet the born again criteria, "other," who belong to a non-Christian religious group, and "skeptics," which includes atheists, agnostics and those with no religious faith.
Under those categories, Barna's research shows that Romney only won the evangelical vote, 81 to 17 percent, and the non-evangelical born again Christian vote, 56 to 43 percent. Combining those categories, Romney won among all born again Christians, 60 to 39 percent.
President Barack Obama won among notional Christians, 57 to 41 percent, other religious groups, 69 to 30 percent, and skeptics, 68 to 28 percent.
The survey of 1,008 adults, including 771 voters, was conducted Nov. 6-10. The margin of error for the sample of voters is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Ok, did he receive a high level of support or a low level of support, and why the heck are people trying to spin this, unless they are not on our side?
Capturing 81 percent of the evangelical vote is hardly something to cry about. But let's not forget the crap that Kevin "coach" Collins was peddling the day after the elections, when he claimed that (and I quote)
Evangelical Christians may not be evil people, but they helped an evil president become an evil dictator on Tuesday. The exact numbers aren’t in but clearly the vast majority of Evangelicals stayed home on Election Day.
What all these people fail to mention is that Obama didn’t get as many votes in his second term election as in his first. One has to wonder who dropped off of which I have seen no analysis?
Yet Obama got 98% of the black evangelical vote.
We had better stop this religious schism crap.
We are supposed to draw folks in, not kick them out over single issues.
What I find shocking is that he didn’t get the support from fellow Mormons—Obama got his Blacks—but the Mormons could bother to get off their tails and cast a vote for Mitt. They deserve what dish of humble pie Obama serves them.
"Evangelicals turned out in record numbers and voted as heavily for Mitt Romney yesterday as they did for George W. Bush in 2004," said Ralph Reed, chairman of Faith and Freedom Coalition. "That is an astonishing outcome that few would have predicted even a few months ago. But Romney underperformed with younger voters and minorities and that in the end made the difference for Obama."
On the one hand, FReepers and other conservatives warned that nominating Romney would increase the “sit it out” quotient among conservative voters.
On the other hand, of course it is disappointing that more conservatives did not turn out EVEN for Romney, GIVEN the horror of the alternative (and the very real risk that the MSM will stick the blame somehow on REPUBLICANS for 8 years of Obama failure).
I just hope it wasn’t The Mormon Thing.
Maybe a sizeable chunk of self-described Mormons are Harry Reid Mormons now. Who knows?
I can’t understand why, but someone is trying to spin me. I wish an “evangelical” (whatever that is) would stop by and explain.
The information does seem to be in conflict. I’m confused too.
I couldn’t even find the post-election article (from the same source), that claimed “evangelicals” turned-out in record numbers for Romney. The disparity in accounts is glaring.
We know what the black preacher Rev Wright taught in his church and since 95% of black church people voted for Obama, we know what kind of Christian beliefs they have. What are their black preachers teaching them - to hate crackers?
Why should that stat be any surprise??
If the amount of anti-Mormon vitriol that was posted here on FR was any indication, I’m surprised he got that much support.
I bet all you “true Christians” are really glad you dodged a bullet there, right? I mean what could be worse than a Mormon in the White House? Oh, wait.........
RE: All the GOP had to do was not nominate Obama-lite
OK, which of these folks would have defeated Obama?
Michele Bachmann
Herman Cain
Newt Gingrich
Rick Santorum
For those who don’t know, Bachmann almost lost her seat this year. She hang on by a TINY number and eked out a slim victory.
Only 58% of Hoosiers who were registered to do so bothered to vote. I’m ashamed but it is an indicatore neither party motivated its members.
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