# What happened to the Evangelical vote? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 7, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242 "2012-11-07T17:03:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/1 "2012-11-07T17:03:22Z")
Supposedly the Republican base - of which has included Evangelicals since the days Ronald Reagan courted them - was winning the enthusiasm gap. Evangelicals were always said to have magic powers to sway elections. Hell, George Will even predicted that Minnesota would vote Romney because they were gonna come out in droves because of the same sex marriage initiative on the ballot. So what happened? [ul] [li]Obama won the popular vote by 2.5 million votes and is set to assume a solid victory in the Electoral College.[/li][li]The Mormon faith of the Republican candidate never even was an issue.[/li][li]Same sex marriage initiatives - which had never once passed a state vote - passed in three states while another quashed having the state Constitution amended to remove it.[/li][li]Marijuana is legalized in two states.[/li][/ul] Of course if you look at a Presidential map, you can see that the Bible Belt is still crimson red. But Evangelicals, while always the main force in the South, were counted on in almost every state in the union as a powerful voting block. Until this year. What happened? Are evangelicals getting less political? Are there less Evangelicals outside of the Bible Belt? Are the political views of younger Evangelicals considerably different from their parents? A combination of any of the above? Once we can figure out what happened, we need to surmise how it goes from here: Is this a trend that will continue to make Evangelicals as a voting block less important in National and state politics and eventually even spread to the Bible Belt? Or will the shock of waking up in a world where gays are allowed to smoke pot, get married and have abortions galvanize them to get even more involved? ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/2 "2012-11-07T17:16:23Z")
I’m wondering if its not so much that, but that more minorities are voting in force. Demographics arw changing, and as more outgroups in the US make efforts to get their voices heard we are seeing this shift happen. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/3 "2012-11-07T17:18:05Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > I’m wondering if its not so much that, but that more minorities are voting in force. Demographics arw changing, and as more outgroups in the US make efforts to get their voices heard we are seeing this shift happen. Maybe but the two groups - minorities and Evangelicals - are not mutually exclusive. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/4 "2012-11-07T17:26:45Z")
The Mormon faith of the candidate was, in fact, an issue. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/5 "2012-11-07T17:30:07Z")
Do we know that they DIDN’T come out and vote? Is there any information that shows low turnout in that group? Maybe they’re just not as powerful a bloc as people thought/think? A 5% (hypothetical number) bloc looks really impressive if only 30% of the population is voting, but if 70% of the population votes, suddenly it’s much less important? Story of the Republican Party’s life lately? Or yeah, maybe they couldn’t bring themselves to vote Mormon after all. No data. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/6 "2012-11-07T17:30:18Z")
Really? Who brought up Romney’s Mormonism? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/7 "2012-11-07T17:34:28Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > The Mormon faith of the candidate was, in fact, an issue. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![redtail23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@redtail23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redtail23)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/8 "2012-11-07T17:38:07Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > The Mormon faith of the Republican candidate never even was an issue. > … > What happened? Are evangelicals getting less political? Are there less Evangelicals outside of the Bible Belt? Are the political views of younger Evangelicals considerably different from their parents? A combination of any of the above? Your premise is incorrect. IMO, many evangelicals/charismatics/fundamentalists/etc. chose not to vote due to Romney’s religion. Just because it was never brought up by Obama’s campaign does not mean that it was not an issue. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/9 "2012-11-07T17:39:51Z")
Has anyone gone looking for them? Maybe they were raptured on Nov 5? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/10 "2012-11-07T17:42:49Z")
I heard about a campaign to get folks to write in “Jesus” for president if they were not happy with either candidate (read; did not want to vote for the Mormon). I wonder how many votes the carpenter from Nazareth ended up getting? ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/11 "2012-11-07T17:43:23Z")
I also think, from my own personal observations, that young evangelicals aren’t as tied to the Republican party or conservatism. Many of them have a real social justice streak to them and aren’t afraid to break from their parents’ politics. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/12 "2012-11-07T17:44:37Z")
[quote=“John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear, post:1, topic:640242”] [li]The Mormon faith of the Republican candidate never even was an issue.[/li][/QUOTE] Not in public, anyway. A religious version of the “Bradley Effect” may have come into play, with Evangelicals finding it difficult to bestir themselves to go to the polls and vote for the follower of the Mormon “cult” (no matter how many of their self-declared leaders declared that that label was no longer operative). ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/13 "2012-11-07T17:46:15Z")
The evangelicals I know still wound up voting for Romney. They cared about his Mormonism until Fox News told them they shouldn’t. I even tried to point out how they were voting for the Mormon candidate, after teaching me all my life that I should vote for the Christian, and that Mormons weren’t Christians. I get blasted about that, rather than them ever realizing their inconsistency. This does lead me to an interesting idea, though. All we have to do is get a gay Republican to run for office, and, boom, Evangelicals will accept homosexuality. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/14 "2012-11-07T17:51:51Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > Maybe but the two groups - minorities and Evangelicals - are not mutually exclusive. And not all Evangelicals, of whichever race or ethnicity, are politically conservative. From [Sojourner](http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/11/05/god-still-not-republican-or-democrat) (Jim Walllis, CEO & Editor, has been on the _Daily Show_) > [@](#): > > During the 2004 presidential election season, Sojourners put out a bumper sticker with these words: “God Is Not a Republican, or a Democrat.” The number of orders was overwhelming and we kept running out. The simple message struck a chord among many Christians who were tired of the assumptions and claims by the Religious Right that God was indeed a Republican, or at least voted a straight-party ticket for the GOP. They also absurdly implied — and sometimes explicitly stated — that faithful Christians couldn’t support Democratic candidates. We said that voting was always an imperfect choice in a fallen world, based on prudential judgments about how to best vote our values, that people of faith would always vote in different ways — and that was a good thing for a democracy and the common good. And Evangelical is not a synonym for Fundamentalist. Historically, the more conservative Protestants–often belonging to denominations which had been persecuted by various Established Churches–avoided mixing their faith with politics. Here’s [a .pdf from the Texas Freedom Network](http://www.tfn.org/site/DocServer/SORR_06_ReportWEB.pdf?docID=222), detailing the history of the Religious Right; the unholy congress between the Texas Republican Party & the Southern Baptist Convention was pivotal. I’ll be checking back with these sources for analysis of the election. But, for the most religiously conservative members of this movement, both Romney’s LDS membership & Ryan’s Roman Catholicism would have been problematic… ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/15 "2012-11-07T17:57:06Z")
Maybe many of them remembered what Jesus said were the greatest commandments: > [@](#): > > ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ and realized that deporting immigrants and withholding rights from gay people and shitting on the poor were not mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/16 "2012-11-07T17:57:44Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > And not all Evangelicals, of whichever race or ethnicity, are politically conservative. From [Sojourner](http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/11/05/god-still-not-republican-or-democrat) (Jim Walllis, CEO & Editor, has been on the _Daily Show_) > > And Evangelical is not a synonym for Fundamentalist. Historically, the more conservative Protestants–often belonging to denominations which had been persecuted by various Established Churches–avoided mixing their faith with politics. Here’s [a .pdf from the Texas Freedom Network](http://www.tfn.org/site/DocServer/SORR_06_ReportWEB.pdf?docID=222), detailing the history of the Religious Right; the unholy congress between the Texas Republican Party & the Southern Baptist Convention was pivotal. > > I’ll be checking back with these sources for analysis of the election. But, for the most religiously conservative members of this movement, both Romney’s LDS membership & Ryan’s Roman Catholicism would have been problematic… This seems especially true amount younger evangelicals, who have more tolerance for gay marriage and immigration reform. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/17 "2012-11-07T17:58:24Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > Cite? > **[Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=mormons%2Bare%2Bnot%2Bchristian&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)** ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/18 "2012-11-07T17:58:44Z")
Can some of the people contending that Romney’s religion was indeed an issue provide any evidence of this? I mean, there is no shortage of evidence that Obama’s \*perceived \*religion - not even his real faith - was an issue. It polled. It was discussed in the media. It was discussed on these boards. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/19 "2012-11-07T18:01:00Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > [Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=mormons+are+not+christian&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a) [So what?](https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_nf=3&tok=2wqG0Iyteve-81xDHixZEw&cp=8&gs_id=y&xhr=t&q=Obama+Muslim&pf=p&safe=off&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=Obama+Mu&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=7fae0171a24721ba&bpcl=37643589&biw=1280&bih=911) ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/20 "2012-11-07T18:02:11Z")
Evangelical vote is probably why Romney got as many votes as he did. Take away the bible thumpers and Obama would have won every state but Texas. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242.md?page=2)