The end of the calendar year provides a good time to take stock of Americans’ religion, including the way in which it remains highly intertwined with politics. Protestants continue to make up the largest religious group in America, totaling 49% of U.S. adults interviewed as part of Gallup’s Daily tracking […] Read more »
Is it possible that white evangelicals swung the Alabama election against Roy Moore?
The network exit poll finds 80 percent of white evangelical or born-again Christians supported Roy Moore, 10 points lower than the share of this group that backed Mitt Romney in 2012. The shift is statistically significant and would have been enough to overcome Jones’s 1.5 percentage-point victory margin. CONT. Scott […] Read more »
‘A spiritual battle:’ How Roy Moore tested white evangelical allegiance to the Republican Party
Roy Moore’s failed run for Alabama’s Senate seat tested white evangelicals’ allegiance to the Republican Party. Would they vote for a candidate who shares their conservative views on social issues even though he was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women? Exit polls suggest they did just that, with 80 […] Read more »
In 2017, values voters are hard to find
… For decades, the belief that private morality was essential to assessing the worthiness of politicians and public figures was an animating ideal at the core of the Christian right’s credo. As with most ideals, the movement did not always live up to its own standards. So-called “values voters” pursued […] Read more »
Emerging GOP Divisions on President Trump Loom Over 2018 and 2020 Elections
The eighth annual American Values Survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), released this morning at an event with The Brookings Institution, finds fractures in the Republican Party over the Trump Presidency. Approximately one in three Republicans surveyed (31 percent) say they would prefer the 2020 Republican nominee be […] Read more »
Why Evangelicals Stick with Donald Trump and Roy Moore
Nobody should be surprised that evangelical voters are sticking with the GOP. I’ve been watching evangelical voting behavior since I worked for Paul Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation in the 1980s, and I’ve come to believe that, in most cases (though certainly not all), white evangelicals get their religion from their […] Read more »