Free Republic

Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president this year, received the lowest level of support among evangelicals of any Republican presidential candidate since Bob Dole in 1996, according to a report by Barna Group, a Christian polling organization. Romney received the support of 81 percent of evangelicals, compared to 88 percent for John McCain in 2008, and 83 percent and 85 percent, respectively, for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Only Dole received a lower level of evangelical support at 74 percent in Barna's polling. Barna's results differ from other polls showing Romney received a higher proportion of the...

In an article referenced by Scott earlier today, Byron York shows that Mitt Romney did not lose the election because of his failure to win the Hispanic vote. Romnwy would have lost in Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Hampshire even if he had gained a large portion of the Hispanic votes in these key battleground states.York also demonstrates that, as we have argued, Hispanics are not a natural Republican constituency. If anything, they are natural Democrats for reasons unrelated to the immigration issue. Exit poll information suggests that Hispanics based their votes on a number of issues beyond...

The Catholic Church — a politically and ethnically sprawling institution — has no natural home on the American ideological spectrum. Neither major party combines moral conservatism with a passion for social justice. So Catholic leaders have often challenged Democrats to be more pro-life and Republicans to be more concerned about immigrants and the poor. But President Obama’s first term was a period of unexpected aggression against the rights of religious institutions. His Justice Department, in the Hosanna-Tabor case, argued against the existence of any “ministerial exception” to employment rules. Obama tried to mandate that Catholic schools, hospitals and charities offer...

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....

While evangelical leaders have long protested that evangelicalism is politically diverse and is a theological identifier rather than a political one, it appears that evangelicals are more politically unified than ever before... We know less about evangelical voters this year than we did four years ago because exit polls did not ask as many voters about being a "born again or evangelical" Christian. According to pre-election polls, white evangelicals backed Romney by nearly a four-to-one margin. Romney received a larger slice of the evangelical vote than any previous Republican presidential candidate. At nearly 80 percent, evangelical support for Romney was...

If you're discouraged or think the world is upside down, I have something for you. Guess what, regardless of who won the election, today we still have millions of babies being aborted every year. We still have 50% of marriages ending in divorce. We still have a supposedly Christian culture that has separated sex from marriage from procreation. We still have many Americans who are more likely to vote based upon peer pressure, or how nice somebody is, or their own self-interest, or by what the media told them, or by what's socially easy than they are to vote based...

NEW YORK (WLS) - A coalition of women and nonwhites helped re-elect President Obama to a second term Tuesday night. Obama has always performed better with women than with men, and with nonwhites than with whites. But on Tuesday night, those numbers were so much in his favor that they built Obama a powerful firewall against a dropoff in support from white men and independent voters. Nonwhite voters turned out to vote in higher numbers than ever. They made up 21 percent of all voters. In 1996, they were just 10 percent. That new bloc was evident in Florida, the...

Guys – have a quick puff of your joint before heading down the aisle with your boyfriend. In addition to re-electing Obama, various American states voted to legalise dope and gay marriage. OK, so they weren't necessarily the same states, but you get the picture. Last night was a victory for secular liberal America – or, to put it another way, America's emerging secular liberal majority. The United States is still pious by European standards, but the gap is narrowing every year. You cannot visit American bookshops without being struck by the popularity of atheist cheerleaders or agnostic self-help gurus;...

Post your "I Told You So" Vanities here!DON'T Start the 50-millionth Vanity thread!Find your allies on either side:In this corner: "Romney RINO wasn't conservative enough to really win Purple PA and Ohio!"In the other: "The Social Conservatives scared off too many Indiots!"We can have the bile out here and leave the other threads to sincere discussion. Then the Admins can delete this later when we're all embarrassed of what we've said.

In his re-election victory, Democrat Barack Obama narrowly defeated Republican Mitt Romney in the national popular vote (50% to 48%)1. Obama’s margin of victory was much smaller than in 2008 when he defeated John McCain by a 53% to 46% margin, and he lost ground among white evangelical Protestants and white Catholics. But the basic religious contours of the 2012 electorate resemble recent elections – traditionally Republican groups such as white evangelicals and weekly churchgoers strongly backed Romney, while traditionally Democratic groups such as black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, Jews and the religiously unaffiliated backed Obama by large margins.

Evangelical Christian voters turned out in record numbers according to a national post-election survey done by the Faith and Freedom Coalition. However, despite a 78 to 21 percent split in favor of Mitt Romney among white evangelicals, the coalition's leader implied that Barack Obama's win was catapulted by votes from youths and minorities. "Evangelicals turned out in record numbers and voted as heavily for Mitt Romney yesterday as they did for George W. Bush in 2004," said Ralph Reed, chairman of Faith and Freedom Coalition. "That is an astonishing outcome that few would have predicted even a few months ago....

The experts are wringing their hands trying to figure out why Romney didn’t win, but now we know: the 14 million missing voters from Romney’s column are Evangelicals. Evangelical Christians may not be evil people, but they helped an evil president become an evil dictator on Tuesday. The exact numbers aren’t in but clearly the vast majority of Evangelicals stayed home on Election Day. They weren’t dealing with a storm or a personal family emergency. They stayed home because they made a conscious decision to allow our Marxist enemy to continue ruining our lives rather than have Mormon Mitt Romney...

Romney may underperform (or barely match) in turnout the listless McCain in 2008. According to exit polls Romney won white evangelicals by a four-to-one margin—as high or higher than George W. Bush in 2004. Could it have been that many evangelicals couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a Mormon, and simply stayed home?

The largest demographic of Obama's religious coalition supporters is made up of those who have stated they are not affiliated with a religion. The Public Religion Research Institute's 'American Values Survey' pegs that number to be approximately 23%. The largest percentage that supported Mitt Romney came from white, evangelical Protestants, at 37%.The survey also revealed that Obama supporters are younger, more diverse and more accepting of growing minority groups. Compared to the older, largely Caucasian and fundamentally religious group that supported the Republican candidate, analysts are predicting the demographic supporting Obama will translate into more wins for the Democrats in...