Poll: Religious-minded voters tipping toward Obama

In recent presidential history, Republicans have swamped Democrats among voters who regularly attend worship services - and in the last two nail-biters they provided more than the margin of victory.

But a new poll out is the latest to suggest that this November will not be a repeat.

The Barna Group, which tracks faith groups, said Democrat Barack Obama is leading Republican John McCain 43 percent to 34 percent.

Obama's campaign Tuesday highlighted the findings that, of the 19 faith groups tracked in the poll, McCain is only leading among evangelicals. Still, like other national polls, it shows the race appears to be tightening. Obama led 50 percent to 35 percent in the same poll in early June.

McCain has long been viewed with some suspicion by the Christian right, and he has not solidified support among those leaders and voters. He badly needs to do so to win in November.

Well, he has all the Black churchgoers for whom emotion, politics, and race hatred trump the message of the gospels. He will have the non -believing reform Jews, the lapsed/former pro-abort Pelosi Catholics, the Episcopalians and Methodists who doubt the Divinity of Christ,the Unitarians.
But NO ONE who REALLY believes in a just Living God who takes an interest in the affairs of humans can champion stabbing full term babies in the head with scissors. The Democratic Party is the Party of Unbelief.

I attend Mass every Sunday, Novena and scripture study on Tuesday. This religious minded voter would not think of voting for Obama, the one who would let babies surviving abortions died from neglect.

A lot of them mass attenders had no trouble voting for Kerry

If this is the same barna poll I saw earlier today, then the faith groups are not well spelled out.

For the most part, the various faith communities of the U.S. currently support Sen. Obama for the presidency. Among the 19 faith segments that The Barna Group tracks, evangelicals were the only segment to throw its support to Sen. McCain. Among the larger faith niches to support Sen. Obama are non-evangelical born again Christians (43% to 31%); notional Christians (44% to 28%); people aligned with faiths other than Christianity (56% to 24%); atheists and agnostics (55% to 17%); Catholics (39% vs. 29%); and Protestants (43% to 34%). In fact, if the current preferences stand pat, this would mark the first time in more than two decades that the born again vote has swung toward the Democratic candidate.

To claim that Obama leads among the religious-minded from the above data is gross misrepresentation either by Barna or by the author of this article.

Among other things, it doesn't address the "n" of each group. If I have a nation with 50 million Catholics, 150 million evangelicals, and 20 million mainlines, and then "the rest" I can say that Obama leads in 3 out of 4 groups, which would misrepresent that in total numbers that McCain is far ahead.

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