Posted on 11/08/2012 10:27:21 AM PST by Tired of Taxes
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ -- White Catholics, Evangelicals and other Protestant voters appear to have returned to their 2004 party voting preferences in 2012, according to two polls released following Tuesday's voting.
Exit polling released through CNN revealed Protestant Christians (including evangelicals and Mainliners of all races), who made up 53 percent of the electorate, voted 42 percent for President Barack Obama and 57 percent for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Catholics were 25 percent of the electorate, voting 50 percent for Obama and 48 percent for Romney.
Frequency of attendance at religious services revealed a significant gap in support for the candidates, with those attending "weekly" at 39 percent Obama, 59 percent Romney, 'occasionally" at 55 percent Obama and 43 percent Romney and "never" at 62 percent Obama and 34 percent Romney.
A second national poll of those who cast ballots Tuesday commissioned by the Faith and Freedom Coalition reported that white evangelicals voted roughly 78 percent for Romney to 21 percent for Obama. Romney's performance among evangelicals represented a net swing of 10 percent over John McCain's performance in 2008. It also reported that white evangelicals had increased to 27 percent of voters.
Catholic voters who regularly attend Mass broke 67 percent for Romney to 32 percent for Obama, representing a swing of 35 percent in the direction of the GOP since 2008. Romney also won white Catholics by a margin of 59 percent to 40 percent. Obama narrowly won the Catholic vote driven largely by over performing among Hispanic Catholics.
The Faith and Freedom Coalition survey was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and interviewed 1,600 actual 2012 voters.
IRD President Mark Tooley commented:
"Despite hopes for liberal inroads among church groups, especially evangelicals, it appears that evangelicals and traditional Catholics voted strongly along conservative lines. Undoubtedly they were motivated at least partly by issues such as marriage, abortion and religious freedom, especially the HHS contraceptive/abortifacient mandate on religious groups.
"Whatever the reasons for the election’s final result, it seemingly is not due to lack of active concern from tens of millions of evangelicals and traditional Catholics."
FYI
Wonder how many stayed home?
Thank you for this article. I refuse to be lumped in with cafeteria Cathollics and left-wing Protestants.
Good luck figuring out who they thought you should vote for if you came to my church.
From the pulpit the only thing said about the mandate was an invitation to go to the parish website where you could access a link to the Bishops’ statement on it.
They handed out a voters guide in the bulletin that was a complete mish-mash of pro life, anti-mandate, immigration amnesty and “social justice” stuff.
It is clear the "Catholic vote" doesn't vote the way their church leadership encourages since a majority went with obama.
"Whatever the reasons for the election’s final result, it seemingly is not due to lack of active concern from tens of millions of evangelicals and traditional Catholics."
Ping for later.
It was not forceful enough and it was too late. They never confessed to being wrong about Obama in the first place which I think would have done much good.
However, I think any consideration of "the Catholic vote" is a waste of time. We would be better served to look at this group in smaller demographics.
agreed
It is clear the "Catholic vote" doesn't vote the way their church leadership encourages since a majority went with obama
A smaller majority than ever, which is the right direction. Time to separate the goats from the sheep and the wheat from the chaff.
“Exit polling released through CNN revealed Protestant Christians (including evangelicals and Mainliners of all races), who made up 53 percent of the electorate, voted 42 percent for President Barack Obama and 57 percent for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.”
I understand the theological reservations that evangelicals have about Mormons and yes, I can understand how some evangelicals had problems with Romney’s record on social issues.
But seriously - 42% voted for Obama?!
What were they thinking - that by voting for Obama, they’d bring the End Times on faster?!
If I were an evangelical and had serious problems with Romney, serious enough to not wanna vote for him, I’d have let that race go blank on my ballot.
As a Catholic, I really couldn't guess. But, I do know that there is a high percentage of CINO's. In fact, a woman told me that even though she supported abortion she was just as much a Catholic as the Pope.
As I look back over the past 40 to 50 years I think that I know the reason for the high percentage of Catholics who vote for pro-abortion politicians.
There is the lovey-dovey, touchy-feely, hopey-changey attitude of the priests. This also is observable in the Protestant pastors as well.
They have done this to maintain the head count in their parishes and congregations because they have bills to be paid. So they have allowed the infiltration of ideas and behaviors that run contrary to pre-Vatican II dogma.
The net result is that morals have been diluted and the priest and pastors in many instances have become moral eunuchs.
This proves there are a lot of “Christians” who are lost as a bunch of geese without a leader. No “Christian” who truly knows Christ could vote for a democrat. Especially the democrats of today. Reid is a Mormon who doesn’t act like any Mormon I ever met. And Pelosi doesn’t act like any Catholic I’ve ever know. And obama, well, we KNOW what he is.
76% of Hispanics, MOSTLY Catholics, disobeyed the orders of their bishops. 92% of blacks, Christians mostly, disobeyed orders from many of their pastors NOT to support a candidate who advocated same sex. Their is an ELECTORATE problem in America.
“If I were an evangelical and had serious problems with Romney, serious enough to not wanna vote for him, I’d have let that race go blank on my ballot.”
It appears that is what many of them did or did not even come to the polls. I was afraid of that early on when many on this forum stated they would never vote for a Morman or a Rino. I thought that they would come to their senses by Election Day, but I guess not.
It was turnout that beat us in the end.
Whoopdie-freakin'-Doo!
I know of some very conservative church-going Catholics who said they would not vote for Romney. Anecdotal evidence only, and they were just a small number, but one wonders how many others did the same.
I didn’t vote for him, left my ballot blank on that line. Wasn’t because he was Mormon though I suppose that could have been a reason for some.
I said I wasn’t going to vote or work on behalf of an unprincipled opportunistic Massuchusetts Liberal and I meant it. Never once did he offer me any hope he could be counted upon to do anything that would reverse the trajectory of this country. Not socially, not religiously, not economically and he hadn’t a clue what he was talking about on foreign affairs. He wanted the glory of being “president” for the sake of it. That just isn’t good enough.
There will no longer be enough church going people to win anything nationally. This was the last chance.
The pastor at my church railed for weeks and weeks about the HHS Mandate and the Obama administration. He even had us all praying for our First Amendment rights. To be perfectly frank, this was one of the reasons I joined this particular church. I guess other people were sitting in the pews, listening to what I was listening to, and ignoring the advice.
Oh well. There goes another scapegoat for the Rinos - evangelical Christians. Sooner or later the liberal GOP will look in the mirror.
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