Politics And Religion: It's Going To Be A Very Interesting Year
Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 08:22:00 AM PDT
Campaign 2008 has had so many twists and turns already that citing polls conducted a week or two ago seems risky. Nevertheless, the Pew Trust has some interesting data that ought to put a few things into perspective.
Demographer John Green has this to say about John McCain and white Evangelicals:
John McCain has built a broad coalition of different groups in the Republican Party, and white evangelical Protestants are part of that coalition. For instance, when he won in South Carolina, he received 27% of the evangelical vote, a little bit behind Mike Huckabee but still quite respectable in a multi-candidate race. In the key primary state of Florida, McCain got 28% of the evangelical vote, also just behind Huckabee. And in New Hampshire, he actually tied with Huckabee, each with 29% of this religious group’s vote. So white evangelicals have played an important role in the McCain campaign thus far, even though he hasn’t come in first among them. It looks like McCain may win the Republican presidential nomination with this level of support from white evangelicals.
But the more interesting question is what this level of support would mean for the fall election. White evangelicals have been a very strong Republican constituency - the exit polls in the 2004 general election showed that 78% of white, born-again Protestants voted for George W. Bush. Thus, in that very close election, evangelicals were quite important to Bush. And if the 2008 election is close, they would be as important to the Republican nominee. McCain may have some trouble achieving that level of support from white evangelicals given that a majority of them preferred other candidates in the primaries. In addition, many of the leaders of the Christian right have been hostile to McCain.
Can he win without the solid backing of Evangelicals? More to the point, will he? Green points out that Dobson and other Religious Right leaders might not have the clout they'd like you to think they do, and McCain has done reasonably well among Evangelicals. On the other hand, Huckabee just wiped the floor with McCain over the weekend. So who the hell knows what will come of it.
More interesting to me was Green's assertions about the Democratic field:
Religious constituencies present quite a few challenges across the primary field. For instance, if Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee, she would need to mobilize black Protestants, a key Democratic constituency that has been very supportive of Barack Obama. And Obama has had some difficulty with white Catholics, a constituency he will need to swing his way if he is the Democratic nominee. So both Clinton and Obama may have problems with key religious groups, similar to McCain’s problem with white evangelicals.
...
Barack Obama has not done very well with Jewish voters in the early primary contests. They have solidly supported Hillary Clinton in the states where Jews are numerous enough to be reported in the exit polls. There are lingering suspicions in the Jewish community about Obama’s commitment to Israel, and, on top of that, Obama is not particularly well-known in the Jewish community compared with Clinton.
Throw into the mix at least one poll suggesting that up to 1/3 of white Evangelicals in some primary votes went Democratic, and you're seriously scrambling the religious picture. By way of comparison, about a quarter of this group went for Kerry in 2004, and it wasn't Obama who brought them out. Clinton won them in Missouri 54-37 and Tennessee 78-12.
Hillary has also done well among white Catholics, which is why Obama has been struggling among them. It's impossible to tell at this point, but my hunch is that her support would transfer to Obama should he win the nomination. But again, who the heck really knows.
More perspective: the Pew Center for People and the Press reports that apparently nobody but the activists really cares that Clinton and Obama have been going at it:
...Democratic voters remain far more enthusiastic than Republicans about the quality of their candidates, and the favorability ratings for both Clinton and Obama among Democratic voters are virtually unchanged over the past month.
Twice as many Obama supporters have a favorable, rather than an unfavorable, impression of Clinton (62% vs. 31%). By the same two-to-one margin (60%-30%), Clinton supporters express favorable opinions of Obama. This mutual appreciation on the Democratic side stands in contrast to the Republicans; McCain is the only remaining GOP candidate who is viewed favorably by majorities of supporters of his main rivals.
And more on topic, the same study found that McCain's support has grown across all demographic lines, including the religious ones:
That looks to me like a party that will rally around its nominee when the time comes. They may not be terribly thrilled about it, but watch that white Evangelical number and see if it doesn't shoot up once Huckabee has made his inevitable departure from the race. The faster it grows and the higher it goes, the easier time of it McCain will have in November, especially if he winds up taking some of those folks back from Hillary.
Stay tuned, and hope you enjoy the ride.
