God Gap Narrows

[Doug]

Democrats Win Bigger Share of Religious Vote
Parties Disagree on Why The Gap Has Narrowed

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 11, 2006


As the results of the midterm elections sank in this week, religious leaders across the ideological spectrum found something they could agree on: The "God gap" in American politics has narrowed substantially.

Religious liberals contended that a concerted effort by Democrats since 2004 to appeal to people of faith had worked minor wonders, if not electoral miracles, in races across the country.

Religious conservatives disagreed, arguing that the Republican Party lost religious voters rather than the Democrats winning them.

Either way, the national exit polls told a dramatic story of changing views in the pews: Democrats recaptured the Catholic vote they had lost two years ago. They sliced the GOP's advantage among weekly churchgoers to 12 percentage points, down from 18 points in 2004 congressional races and 22 points in the 2004 presidential contest. Democrats even siphoned off a portion of the Republican Party's most loyal base, white evangelical Protestants.

"The God gap definitely didn't disappear, but it did narrow. And it narrowed in part because evangelical voters had major questions about the direction of the country," argued Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

In House races in 2004, 74 percent of white evangelicals voted for Republicans and 25 percent for Democrats, a 49-point spread, according to exit polls. This year, Republicans received 70 percent of the white evangelical vote and Democrats got 28 percent, a 42-point spread.

...Despite the GOP's losses, conservative religious leaders gave no indication they plan to engage in the kind of introspection and repositioning that religious liberals did two years ago. And despite their anger at congressional Republicans, they did not suggest that they were about to abandon the GOP...

See here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

The religious leaders won't leave the GOP because they get too much money and power from them, but the "faithful" have to a certain point decided the leaders of the flock are wolves in sheeps' clothing and have moved to safer pastures.