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.
No doubt all these self-described Evangelicals who said they voted for Obama were just Mormon provocateurs out to make their main competitor, the Baptists, look bad!
born again...a distinction from Christening denominations who simply grant by virtue of birth
adherence to the Gospel..bigtime
Biblical literalism to varying degrees
heavy emphasis on Christ's death on the cross to wash away our earthly sins which if we accept can redeem even the worst of us
a lot of folks here think that it means non Catholic/Orthodox/Episcopal white Christian voter and they are quite wrong
it means a lot more and a lot less and it can include church going blacks who vote skin
or Assemblies of God latinos...there are a good bit of them...who vote skin
but usually it is associated with Southern Baptist, Pentecostals, and Church of Christ (restoration), LCMS, Nazarene, Southern Methodist, and PCA, and a host of other smaller denominations and black church groups
these folks did not stay home...none I knew anyhow...but somebody did looks like ...probably across the board given Romney's lackluster defensive campaign..which is why he lost even though demographics do steamroll us
this was our last easy chance and we blew it
in France during the religious wars when the term first became widespread it meant ALL PROTESTANTS ~
Supposedly there was some “evangelist” who convinced something like 1.6 million people to write in “Jesus Christ.”
Black “evangelicals” make up about 7% of the American evangelical vote. That is a Democrat race voting block no matter what liberals do.
my time in France in the 80s had nothing to do with religion
though I am partially Huguenot descended
i had fun driving fast cars, staying in Relais and Chateau listed joints
and chasing lovely French...petasse
Sure, there was vote fraud, but there is always vote fraud, so we all expected that. The Romney campaign and the Republican party obviously just haven’t done enough to counter that.
Whatever we blame this defeat on, whether it’s vote fraud, or demographics, or Chris Christie, it will still boil down to the fact that we should have been able to overcome those obstacles. We can’t just pick a scapegoat and then try the same old strategy in four years, like we usually do.
no, lets not exaggerate. This is salvageable
that’s from the Pew polls.... white evangelicals
An improvement upon that 50% of Catholics would have delivered Ohio and Pennsylvania.
And what benefit did Paul Ryan provide? None that I see
Oh no, it’s the Evangelicals’ fault, though. A ticket with a Mormon and a Catholic, Evangelicals vote for that ticket higher on a percentage basis than any of them, Mormons included.
Ridiculous. It’s either a dire lack of math skills on the part of those making these claims, or as you say, a desire to deflect blame from some other group.
At least they’re not very good liars and propagandists, not yet anyway.
• African Methodist Episcopal Church
• The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
• Alliance of Baptists
• American Baptist Churches in the USA
• Diocese of the Armenian Church of America
• Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
• Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
• Church of the Brethren
• The Coptic Orthodox Church in North America
• The Episcopal Church
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
• Friends United Meeting
• Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
• Hungarian Reformed Church in America
• International Council of Community Churches
• Korean Presbyterian Church in America
• Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church
• Mar Thoma Church
• Moravian Church in America Northern Province and Southern Province
• National Baptist Convention of America
• National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.
• National Missionary Baptist Convention of America
• Orthodox Church in America
• Patriarchal Parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in the USA
• Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
• Polish National Catholic Church of America
• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
• Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.
• Reformed Church in America
• Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. and Canada
• The Swedenborgian Church
• Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch
• Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America
• United Church of Christ
• The United Methodist Church •
For those who thought that, I can guarantee you that if Romney had won Tues. we wouldn't be seeing companies already laying off workers and cutting back their hours.
I wonder if the holier-than-thous have dependable jobs and couldn't care less about others.
We have to learn the lesson here and that lesson is that if are ever going to win another election we have to understand that is going to take all of us hanging together in our desire to defeat Democrat.
We have too many Republicans acting like children, that if we can't have our way, we're not going to vote. There is a reason we have primaries.
Hail, President Obama
and that includes all manner of liberal denominations like Squarehead Lutherans who are anything but conservative like the MoSyns
when folks here bitch about evangelicals not coming out enough they mean true believers...Gospel and emphasis of the Crucifixtion sorts...like me...fundamentalists basically
and being one I can assure very few voted Dem..I know one off the top of my head..out of hundreds
look at white vote Miss...the land of fundies
90% GOP vote
how good works Yankees who are called evangelicals voted...who knows...bad...even worse than Catholics is my guess
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