Midterm Elections 2014: White Evangelicals Helped Tip The Scales For The GOP

[trotsky]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/05/election-2014-religion-evangelicals_n_6107842.html

White Evangelicals turned up at the polls in large numbers on Tuesday, playing a key role placing Congress in the hands of the Republican Party.

Evangelicals tend to be more enthusiastic than other groups about the midterm elections, according to polling data from Reuters/Ipsos. Election Day 2014 was no different, with exit polls showing that Protestants and other non-Catholic Christians made up about half of the electorate and tended to cast their votes in favor of the GOP by about 60 percent.

More specifically, 26 percent of voters self-identified as white evangelical or born-again Christian. Of that group, 78 percent voted for Republican candidates.

In highly contested races in the Southern states of Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, and North Carolina, exit polling shows that white evangelicals showed up to vote in high percentages, according to Religion Dispatches.

I had seen it stated in this group that some felt religious voters were "fleeing the Democratic party." It appears that is not the case at all, so we don't need to accuse anyone of driving them away. Religious conservative voters were just better at getting to the polls.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. again.

You forgot that.

[Act_of_Reparation]

2. Yet some would have us believe these people are a fringe element

Or, more confusingly, that they don't matter because they only live in the "boonies".

[Rob H.]

3. "Religious conservative voters were just better at getting to the polls."

They sometimes have help getting there, too. IIRC, the Southern Baptist megachurch near me had cars and buses going to people's houses (or ferrying them from the church) to take them to the polls.

Edited to add: this is the same megachurch that allowed Mike Huckabee to preach in 2008 during the GOP primary and invited Rick Santorum to appear in 2012. (Santorum won the TN GOP primary--apparently Romney wasn't crazy enough for 'em.)

[beam me up scottie]

4. Interesting results, thanks for posting this.

About 71 percent of white Protestants and 59 percent of white Catholics voted Republican, according to exit polls. Individuals who attended religious services regularly were also more likely to vote Republican.

On the other hand, American Jews remained a solid Democratic voting bloc, according to a J Street Election Night Poll. About 69 percent voted for Democratic congressional candidates. President Obama’s approval rating is 15 percentage points higher among American Jews than for the general population.

“The 2014 Jewish vote once again demonstrates that American Jews are a base Democratic constituency that supports the Obama Administration’s efforts to reach an agreement with Iran and to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the pollster Jim Gerstein said in a statement. “While Prime Minister Netanyahu has recently raised questions about American values, the data clearly show that American Jewish values closely align with the actions of the Obama administration.”

[meow2u3]

5. My solution: treat white fundy voters like they treat minorities who vote Dem

All it takes is a "civics test" which includes questions such as "What is the official religion of the United States"? or "Does the Constitution require a religious test as a condition for running for office"?

We know the answer (I'm not telling), but I'm pretty sure they don't.

[theHandpuppet]

6. Churches are vastly underrated as community grassroots organizations

Last edited Sat Nov 8, 2014, 08:50 AM - Edit history (3)

Especially in rural areas where they have served as the center of community life for hundreds of years. Not only are they better at getting people to the polls (literally) they are quite effective at steering the political debate. Also, the reality is that in rural areas most of those churches are going to trend towards the conservative protestant, the evangelicals, pentecostals and so forth. Where I grew up you couldn't drive half a mile without seeing another Freewill Baptist Church just off the road, sometimes just set up in a trailer with a hand painted sign pointing the way.

Some ten years ago I posted a thread about the Appalachian vote, one that I tucked away in my journal because it got absolutely no response. Yet it's as true to me now as it was back then. We could take a lesson.

Yet from another perspective...

Posted by theHandpuppet in General Discussion: Presidential
Fri Oct 22nd 2004, 05:01 AM

To many folks in the rural mountain communities in WV, the impact of the church on their everyday lives is infinitely greater than that of the federal government. The church is their living community, where members depend on one another to see them through times of sickness and need. When disaster strikes, as it does all too often in the mountains, it is to the neighbor and the congregation these people turn, as one can't wait for the federal government to find you (and how much media coverage did the disastrous flooding this year in WV and eastern KY receive -- good thing it didn't happen in NY, eh, where people were touted by the media as "heroic" for enduring the horrible trial of losing power for a day!).

No, I don't think it's a matter of "not thinking" about how either party's agenda will effect them; the fact is, these are folks who have been largely abandoned by both parties, by their own federal govt. What has stood by them through thick and thin is their church, living and tangible. It is the source of their nourishment, the center of their social life, their one unshakable faith, yet it never asks more of them than they can give. These folks aren't voting Republican or Democratic, for those are mere labels for an abstract, but they are voting for their church. It's by adopting the image, rather than the substance, of the church that the Republicans have made such headway into previously Dem strongholds. "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." -- the book of Matthew

To truly understand what has happened (politically speaking) in places like WV there first has to be an understanding of the role the church has had and still plays in community life and some acknowledgment that these are the folks who will be "left behind" no matter which party takes office. Progressives and social activists can best establish some common ground in places like rural WV by working with rather than competing with the church as a *community* dynamic. I'm not talking about the slick, religious leeches like the Falwells and Robertsons, but the minister who delivers sermons on Sunday and digs coal on a Monday.

As a young Loretta Lynn once said, "I may be ignorant but I ain't stupid." Ask these folks to either abandon their political party or their church and I can tell you right now which one they'll choose. It matters not a whit whether I would personally agree with that decision, but I do understand where they're coming from.

[JDDavis]

7. Interesting insight., Thank you n/t

[theHandpuppet]

8. Thanks. Looking back, there were many things I left unsaid.

... but at the time, as I recall, I was pretty well tired of shouting into a vacuum.

Another legacy of the Bush regime is the "faith based initiatives" approach to addressing problems in rural and poor areas. What this program did was to effectively remove a government presence in these areas to be replaced by religious charities, many of which receive government funding as part of that initiative.

As I posited to the A&A group:
As some of you know, I’m the host of Appalachia Group and as such, one of my personal goals is to bring attention to various charities that feed, clothe and house the poor throughout Appalachia. Finding charities not attached to religious groups (especially fundamentalist groups) for people in this region is damned difficult.

Look, I admire the work many of these missions do in Appalachia because so many of the poor there have been consistently denigrated & ignored. Donating your time and energy to people of the hills is not exactly something a person does for publicity.

Given that, I’m truly conflicted because most of the charities doing good works in Appalachia are also using these efforts to minister. I resent being asked to include a Bible or a coloring book of Bible stories with a backpack of needed food for kids. I’m suspicious of groups that travel to Appalachia to rebuild homes and use it as a segue to “witness” for the Lord. Is that small minded of me? Should I care as long as someone is getting a meal, a coat, a roof that doesn’t leak? But I do care and it’s a terrible struggle for me. Is a lesson in anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-science theology (not to mention Republican propaganda) the price tag that should be attached to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ?

"Faith based initiatives" was a Republican strategy that has worked remarkably well. The notable presence of government programs that once provided a safety net has been replaced by religious charities. Not just for food and clothing, either, but for everything from doctors & clinics to home repair and disaster relief. The hand of government was effectively removed as a presence in these areas to be left to, by and large, white evangelicals. I truly don't think the Democratic party nor this President have grasped the extent to which this program undermined our influence in these regions and we are now reaping what the Republicans had sown.