Posted on 11/08/2012 3:41:20 PM PST by Anti-Hillary
Why & what else do the exit polls tell us about how Christians voted?
[CORRECTED VERSION: In the first version of this column, I incorrectly reported a figure of 25 million evangelicals voting for Obama in 2012. The actual number, as now noted below, is about 6.4 million. Please forgive my error.]
As the smoke clears from the wreckage of the Romney defeat on Tuesday, some intriguing yet disturbing facts are coming to light.
* Fewer people overall voted in 2012 (about 117 million) compared to 2008 (about 125 million).
* President Obama received some 6.6 million fewer votes in 2012 than he did in 2008 (60,217,329 in 2012 votes compared to 66,882,230 votes in 2008).
* One would think that such a dynamic would have helped Romney win — clearly it did not.
* Incredibly, Governor Romney received nearly 1 million fewer votes in 2012 than Sen. John McCain received in 2008. (In 2008, McCain won 58,343,671 votes. In 2012, Romney won only 57,486,044 votes.)
Why? How was it possible for Romney to do worse than McCain? It will take some time to sift through all of the data. But here is some of what we know from the 2012 election day exit polls:
The President received a whopping 71% of the Hispanic vote (which was 10% of the total votes cast), compared to only 27% for Romney (McCain got 31% of the Hispanic vote in 2008). Obama also won 56% of the moderate vote, which was interesting given that Romney (who got 41%) was widely perceived by the GOP base as being a “Massachusetts moderate.” The President lost married women (getting only 46% of their vote to Romney’s 53%). But won decisively among unmarried women (67% to Romney’s 31%).
That said, what I’m looking at most closely is the Christian vote, and here is where I see trouble: •42% of the Protestant Christian vote went for Obama in 2012. This was down from 45% in 2008. •57% of the Protestant Christian vote went for Romney in 2012. This was up from 54% that McCain won in 2008. •When you zoom in a bit, you find that 21% of self-identified, white, born-again, evangelical Christians voted for President Obama in 2012. •You’d think this decrease in evangelical votes for Obama would have helped win the race for Romney, but it didn’t. •78% of evangelical Christians voted for Romney in 2012. Yes, this was up from the 74% that McCain received in 2008, but it wasn’t nearly enough. •To put it more precisely, about 5 million fewer evangelicals voted for Obama in 2012 than in 2008. Meanwhile, some 4.7 million more evangelicals voted for Romney than voted for McCain. Yet Romney still couldn’t win. •Meanwhile, 50% of the Catholic vote went for Obama in 2012. This was down from the 54% that Obama won in 2008. •48% of the Catholic vote went for Romney in 2012. This was up from the 45% that McCain won in 2008. Yet it still wasn’t enough.
Now consider this additional data: •In 2008, white, born-again, evangelical Christians represented 26% of the total vote for president, according to the exit polls. •In 2012, white, born-again, evangelical Christians represented 26% of the total vote for president, according to the exit polls. •In other words, we saw no change at all in the size of the evangelical vote, –no net gain, certainly no surge, no record evangelical turnout, despite expectations of this. •Of the 117 million people who voted on Tuesday, therefore, about 30 million (26%) were evangelicals. Of this, 21% — or about 6.4 million evangelicals — voted for Obama. •By comparison, of the 125 million people who voted in 2008, 32.5 million (26%) were evangelicals. At the time, Obama won 24% of evangelicals, or about 7.8 million people. •What’s more, in 2008, 27% of the total vote for president was Catholic, according to the exit polls. •In 2012, only 25% of the total vote for president was Catholic. •Remarkably, this means that Romney got a higher percentage of the Catholic vote than McCain, but millions of fewer Catholics actually voted in 2012, despite having Rep. Paul Ryan, a practicing Catholic, on the ticket.
What does all this mean? A few observations: 1.During the GOP primaries in 2012, it was reported that there was record turnout by evangelical voters — they were fired up and mobilized then (though largely behind Sen. Rick Santorum.)
2.There were concerns by a number of Christian leaders going into the 2012 elections that Romney’s Mormonism might suppress evangelical and conservative voter turnout. 3.The Romney campaign worked hard to not only to win the evangelical vote but to turn out more evangelicals to the polls — but it did not work.
4.Despite Obama’s pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, anti-religious freedom record — a record presumably abhorrent both to evangelicals and conservative Catholics — Romney simply was not able to cut deeply enough into Obama’s evangelical and Catholic vote.
5.If Romney had been able win over significantly more evangelicals – and/or dramatically increased evangelical turnout in the right states – he would have won the election handily.
6.It is stunning to think that more than 6 million self-described evangelical Christians would vote for a President who supports abortion on demand; supported the same-sex marriage ballot initiatives that successed in Maryland, Maine and Washington; and was on the cover of Newsweek as America’s “first gay president.” Did these self-professed believers surrender their Biblical convictions in the voting booth, or did they never really have deep Biblical convictions on the critical issues to begin with?
7.Whatever their reasons, these so-called evangelicals doomed Romney and a number of down-ballot candidates for the House and Senate.
8.This is what happens when the Church is weak and fails to disciple believers to turn Biblical faith into action.
9.Given the enormous number of evangelical Christians in the U.S., this bloc could still affect enormous positive change for their issues if they were to unify and vote for the pro-life, pro-marriage candidate as a bloc.
10.What will it take to educate, register and mobilize Christians to vote on the basis of Biblical principles, and what kind of candidates could best mobilize them? This is a critical question that Christian political leaders as well as pastors must serious consider. As we have seen, just a few million more evangelicals voting for pro-life, pro-marriage candidates could offset other demographics that are becoming more liberal.
11.That said, we need national candidates who take values issues as seriously as economic and fiscal issues, and have strong credentials on these values issues, and can talk about these issues in a winsome, compassionate, effective manner.
12.We need pastors registering voters in their churches and teaching the people in their congregations the importance of the civic duty of voting.
13.None of this should come, however, at the expense of pastors and other Christian leaders clearly, boldly and unequivocally teaching and preaching the Word, proclaiming the Gospel, and making disciples, and helping believers learn to live out their faith in a real and practical way in their communities, including being “salt” and “light” to preserve what is good in society. What we need most in America isn’t a political revival but a sweeping series of spiritual revivals — a Third Great Awakening. As men and women’s hearts are transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they will, in time, vote for the values they are internalizing from the Bible. As I wrote about in Implosion, if we don’t see a Third Great Awakening soon, I’m not convinced we will be able to turn this dear nation around in time.
Well, it's possible...but Evangelicals weren't alone on this...and more white non-Evangelical Protestants & Catholics stayed out of the election process this go-round...compared to even more Evangelicals turning out: See: How the Faithful Voted: 2012 Preliminary Analysis [Evang. up; other Prot. + white Catholics down]
Quite frankly, I do not believe any exit polls.
If all the pollsters and experts got this whole election this wrong by so much, there is no way the exit pollsters got it right.
This is all conjecture.
Any self identified Evangelical who voted for Obama in 2012 is not an Evangelical to begin with. Period. Whether they think so or not. Catholics are schizophrenic when it comes to the Bible and their core beliefs, but that is not so with true evangelicals.
What I want to see is WHERE the 2012 vote totals were less than the 2008 vote totals.
The lines, even with early voting, were much longer than 2008. There was less motivation for ANYONE to vote for Obama then in 2008. We know that there were many who voted for Zippy in 2008 that were not going to vote for Zippy this time.
S0, eleven million voters more voted last time than this time? When there were so many inclined to vote against Zippy?
Remember 2010? What happened to those voters? They decided to let Zippy win another four years?
The Hispanic difference between 2008 and 2012 is 10% of 3 percentage points. So no,pandering to them is not the answer. And the number of single women is not greater than the number of white males, white women who are married, etc. so they are not the cause either.
Frankly, if the pollsters ,Luntz, Rasmussen, Rove and Morris got it this wrong, they need to go away. I say they get no more chances to screw up. The folks here on FR probably could do a better analysis of the polls than they did. So now they are telling us how to solve the GOP problem base don exit polling that is not in any way exact, and we are supposed to believe them and go the way they tell us.
Screw that!
After four years of Zippy and his disastrous policies,a Vice President with dementia,and people all over single married, young older all out of work or making less than before, with a high unemployment rate and no plan to fix anything—that’s the guy Americans voted for?
Baloney. This election was stolen in key precincts in key states and the fraud is so out there it is staring us in the face.
The Dems went for broke—remember their theme—By Any Means Necessary—to keep Zippy in the Oval Office.They are counting on the GOP to do NOTHING. They have been buggering election results since 1960 on the Presidential level. They fight every voter ID initiative or voter roll cleanup operation that starts.We saw how they almost stole 2000 right in our faces.
So why is 2012 any different? In four states there were multiple incidents of Romney votes changing to Obama votes before the voter even pressed the “VOTE” button. How do you think that happens? Magic?
Romney didn't get up to McCain's numbers, so we have a 2 million vote gap.
The difference is readily explained by demographic change, death, disease, disability ~ etc. Someone forgot to register more Republicans and then encourage them to go vote for the Republican candidate. I think that's behavior not really of much interest to the GOP-e ~ they leave it to the locals ~ even if Romney had kicked sand in their faces ~ does not work well!
Evangelicals voted. Black Evangelicals voted for Obama. They were at least 10% of his vote ~ to wit, 6 million people.
White Evangelicals voted for Romney ~ probably in greater percentages than other groups ~ even Mormons.
Well, yes & no.
I mean, you could say that no early Christian who was a true Christian would be sleeping with their mom-in-law; but the church @ Corinth had that...and the apostle Paul addressed it.
(You have even less church discipline these days...so there's ALL kinds of people on the rolls of church membership lists...and remember, Jesus said that the tares would be among the wheat...)
You never know if Virginia or Ohio gets put in the GOP column, less electoral votes for 0bama, less of a mandate
I think they are the Santorum avengers.
“Polls are either wrong or we are facing Evangelists that no longer believe in God. Unfortunately, I think it is the latter.”
They don’t believe in God but they consider themselves “spiritual,” dontcha know...
I think Rosenberg is slightly over here...I think it could wind up @ 6.4 million (after all uncounted votes are counted)...
As Callahan has pointed out, they are still counting votes. In CA alone...1/2 million from 7 counties...+ provisional votes in ALL states...
Yet, if we only went with the count right now...the # of white Evangelicals who voted would be anywhere from 29.5 million to almost 31 million. 1/5th of that ranges from just less than 6 million to less than 6.2 million.
We have some of these idiots right here on FR. THANKS MORONS!”””””””.... YEP, they are beginning to crawl out now, then there are these: Enough to put Romney over the top it seems, but by all means lets stick to Principles.
http://www.votingforjesus.com/
Thanks for reinforcing my point which was to solve the mystery of the 6 million Evangelicals. Everybody seemed to assume they were white.
Well, sounds like you are a very liberal Republican or a Democrat.
When we are speaking about religion, we are talking strictly about adherence to the Bible, not churches beliefs or sayings.
No ONE who believes in the Bible could ever vote for a Democratic Candidate these days!! That includes all Evangelicals to me unless you narrow the definition to something that I no longer recognize.
Church discipline has absolutely nothing to do with this! This is all about individual beliefs and whether they are actually a Christian or not! If they are a Christian (or Evangelical) then they could NOT vote for Obama!!
Black Evangelicals or Black Liberation Theologists?
Worth repeating. Some are very slow learners, I do believe those same people have a religion of, to and for their holier than thou pastors. They will follow him no matter what he tells them to do. OVER 2 Million of them refused to vote for Satan and wrote in JESUS........I'm stunned at the ignorance, they got Satan.
Black Evangelicals are somewhat likely to vote for a black man for President given the chance. Fur Shur that's not coming around again in anyone's lifetime. Obama ruined it for all the minority groups in this country.
They should have just stayed home to protest to save our country!!
Not at all...so pro-life I was lambasted for not voting for a pro-abort (either Obama or Romney). Voted for Virgil Goode; so, no, I didn't 'stay home.'
No ONE who believes in the Bible could ever vote for a Democratic Candidate these days!! That includes all Evangelicals to me unless you narrow the definition to something that I no longer recognize.
OK, let's take a lot of preaching we heard constantly on FR for a moment.
(#1) Let's say you were an undecided voter...MUCH of the FReeper pre-election chatter was that you couldn't vote third party 'cause that would be tossing away your vote.
(#2) If you were undecided, and you didn't want to vote for a wealthy guy who's given $millions to slam the worldwide Christian church as part of the Mormon accusation movement, what then?
Or if you saw that Lds official teaching was that Romney was a "god in embryo," why would you offend your sensibilities vs. idolatry & vote for Romney?
So...if you put #1 & #2 above together, that would seemingly eliminate (a) voting third party; and (b) voting for Romney.
I heard a FAIR amount of discussion on talk radio from people who said the choice was to vote for Romney -- or not at all. I'm sure some chose "not at all."
And then others, if they listened to the nonsense about not voting third party, -- and they couldn't bring themselves to voting for Romney, may have chose Obama.
Now from a pro-life angle, & a socialist angle, & a big govt angle, & a whole host of other angles, was that very discerning?
No. Shows TERRIBLE discernment.
But I don't believe it was any more "discerning" to tell pro-life voters, "Hey, sear your conscience. Go ahead, vote for the self-confessed pro-abort, Mitt Romney. Go ahead, embrace political relativism. Oh, and btw, your 'reward' for that? Nothing. You will learn that Romney lost, anyway. But, hey, that's 'OK.' At least the RINOs have properly 'RINOized' you into eventually accepting all future RINO pro-abort candidates. You have tossed away your ultimate convictions & standards. Oh, you may still have 'preferences'; but they're all eventually negotiable & up for 'compromise.'"
Where’s your 2 million voting for Jesus ~ sounds like an urban legend. Bet it’s got everyone from SLC to Provo in a buzz eh!
Got to stick to those Priciples, so they chose MUSLIM, jihad, sharia law. Wonderful/s
Wow, I tried to follow you logic and could never come to a conclusion...did you?
Really, that was a bit convoluted and I can imagine that you actually think that way.
There were a couple of things that were tangible there but I am not sure that you could actually have voted for them.
I guess that you actually made up your mind by tossing a coin - makes more sense than you did here...
Having spent 40 years working in two of America's most integrated environments ~ USPS and the US Army Infantry, let me say this about that, whites and blacks in this country are remarkably similar. When you get down huddled together fearful that the stupid Russians on the other side of the barbed wire and mined border driving tanks might be aiming to shoot at you, it all comes home to everybody.
Another observation along that line is something I've found working with African and Asian contractors over the years ~ they, meaning Africans and Asians, can't tell the difference between Americans and Mexicans. Now I can, but they can't.
Totally strange stuff eh!
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