# 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:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**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, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/41 "2012-11-07T19:05:27Z")
I also suspect that Billy’s name has been co-opted by Franklin. It’s worth repeating that while most Evangelicals are conservative (but by no means all of them), they actually have very little party loyalty. I’ve seen many many FB posts this week that say “No matter who is elected president, Jesus is king!” Jesus spoke a lot about the dangers of wealth and the obligation to care for the poor and marginalized. With the same-sex marriage battle losing steam, they have a lot less incentive to go out and vote Republican. ---
**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, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/42 "2012-11-07T19:06:42Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > Because anti-Evangelical sentiment against Obama is easy to find. Why wouldn’t it be easy to find anti-Evangelical sentiment for Romney? A Gallup poll is not convincing enough for you? > [@](#): > > I would believe that the 22% of Evangelicals stuck to their guns - if I saw some evidence that they did. You have not found this evidence. You have not shown any evidence they didn’t. > [@](#): > > Meanwhile, there is no shortage of anecdotal evidence of Evangelicals who did choose that specific Mormon when given a choice between Romney and Obama 22%. Even if reduced by half, it is still 11%. ---
**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, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/43 "2012-11-07T19:12:49Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > That tells me that most Evangelicals would rather vote for the Mormon they knew than the “Christian/Muslim/Atheist” they didn’t. And I still don’t see much evidence to sway me. What? Who? Huh? No one is saying that they voted for Obama. The issue is that they _did not vote at all_. ---
**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 10, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/44 "2012-11-10T19:02:08Z")
The [NY Times did an article](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/us/politics/christian-conservatives-failed-to-sway-voters.html?hp&_r=1&) about my OP. I assume, of course, that they were reading it and thought it would make for a good election follow-up story. 😉 Some relevant things from the article: > [@](#): > > Christian conservatives… are reeling not only from the loss of the presidency, but from what many of them see as a rejection of their agenda. They lost fights against same-sex marriage in all four states where it was on the ballot, and saw anti-abortion-rights Senate candidates defeated and two states vote to legalize marijuana for recreational use. > > It is not as though they did not put up a fight; they went all out as never before: The Rev. Billy Graham dropped any pretense of nonpartisanship and all but endorsed Mitt Romney for president. Roman Catholic bishops denounced President Obama’s policies as a threat to life, religious liberty and the traditional nuclear family. Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition distributed more voter guides in churches and contacted more homes by mail and phone than ever before. > > “Millions of American evangelicals are absolutely shocked by not just the presidential election, but by the entire avalanche of results that came in,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Ky., said in an interview. “It’s not that our message — we think abortion is wrong, we think same-sex marriage is wrong — didn’t get out. It did get out. > > “It’s that the entire moral landscape has changed,” he said. “An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.” > > The election results are just one indication of larger trends in American religion that Christian conservatives are still digesting, political analysts say. Americans who have no religious affiliation — pollsters call them the “nones” — are now about one-fifth of the population over all, according to a study released last month by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. > > The younger generation is even less religious: about one-third of Americans ages 18 to 22 say they are either atheists, agnostics or nothing in particular. Americans who are secular are far more likely to vote for liberal candidates and for same-sex marriage. Seventy percent of those who said they had no religion voted for Mr. Obama, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research. > > The evangelical share of the population is both declining and graying, studies show. Large churches like the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God, which have provided an organizing base for the Christian right, are losing members. > > \*\*For the Christian right in this election, fervor and turnout were not the problem, many organizers said in interviews. White evangelicals made up 26 percent of the electorate — 3 percent more than in 2004, when they helped to propel President George W. Bush to re-election. During the Republican primaries, some commentators said that Mr. Romney’s Mormon faith would drive away evangelicals, many of whom consider his church a heretical cult. > > And yet, in the end, evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Romney — even matching the presidential vote of Mormons: 78 percent for Mr. Romney and 21 percent for Mr. Obama, according to exit polls by Edison Research.\*\* The bolding is mine because it emphasizes two things we seemed to have some disagreement on. It turns out that evangelicals did, in fact, turn out in numbers that were not significantly different than in 2004 and those that did turn out voted a little more overwhelmingly for Romney than they did McCain in 2008 ([Exit Polls](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/table.html)) who is not a Mormon, as far as I know. Evangelical leaders interviewed for the Times article did come up with some other explanations - “they were outspent by gay rights advocates in the states where marriage was on the ballot; comments on rape by the Senate candidates Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard E. Mourdock in Indiana were ridiculed nationwide and alienated women; and they never trusted Mr. Romney as a reliably conservative voice on social issues.” - but all of them did agree with the premise that the evangelical vote is becoming less of a force as it gets younger and more ethically diverse. I think this is telling and more accurate than “they didn’t vote for Romney because he was a Mormon.” That doesn’t seem to have been a significant factor and it doesn’t even address the other election results outside of the Presidential race. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/45 "2012-11-10T23:03:46Z")
John\_Stamos’\_Left\_Ear, a lot of your arguments are based on what you see regularly in various prominent news sources. Does it occur to you that these aren’t typical of what people actually believe? A lot of what gets on TV news and even in newspapers and magazines depends more on what some colorful supposed “spokesman” says than what polls show actually most people believe. TV and print news outlets are as concerned with talking about what some off-the wall spokesman says as whether they really have any significant support among the people they claim to represent. ---
**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 10, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/46 "2012-11-10T23:06:45Z")
I guess I kinda believe the Exit Polls and the voting statistics… ---
**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 10, 2012, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242/47 "2012-11-10T23:07:51Z")
Although I wonder what you specifically take issue with in the article. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-evangelical-vote/640242.md?page=2)