On the other hand, Mormons are primarily white, and whites voted for Angle 52-42%. Reid won because of large majorities of blacks, asians, and hispanics.
While Reid won 10% of the McCain vote, Angle won 11% of the Obama vote. And actually, that shows another key to the Reid victory — he crushed Angle with people who had not voted in 2008 (68-29).
And while Reid got 21% of the pro-Tea-Party vote, Angle got 22% of the anti-Tea-Party vote.
I find exit polls to be confused in that regard; There is always this 10-15% number that seem to vote against their own professed interests.
I know Mormons tend to vote socially conservative; I don’t know that they consider themselves tea party members. I do see your reasoning, and it has some merit. I would say it isn’t enough to support the argument that Reid got a majority of the Mormon vote; but it certainly would be consistant with that theory.
I appreciate you taking the time to do that analysis. I had looked more at the demographic data (college graduate, age, race, economic status), which were also weak data points. I do wish someone would have asked the religion question, because I think it would be fascinating.
Anyway, I don’t even think it would be impossible that Mormons would have voted in the majority for Reid over Angle; between him being a Mormon, and the effective assault on Angle being a bigot using quotes from her long-gone ex-pastor, there would be reason for it. I simply thought, after looking at the articles published before and after the race, that Reid was not getting the Mormon support you might expect.
I do wish someone would have asked the religion question, because I think it would be fascinating.
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I would have too. I know there was a freeper who wrote a book on Reid and his Mormon connections, but I haven’t seen him on in awhile. Perhaps, Colo would know the title, author or freeper name.
There is also a possibility that the media was playing up the Mormon division in the race. Before the election, to make Reid not appear to conservative and after to appear that Reid won on his own. Truth is we will never know how many LDS voted for Reid. We just know he won, sadly.
Well, rather than simply wait for the exit polls of the next election, I'm weighing in on the "religion" matter here and now...as to how much Mormon leaders will "weigh in" on a Mormon POTUS.
New thread up: CNN blog reports from anti-Mormon Bizarro-Land [Real Mormonism]