Protestant Voters Show Democratic Shift

Evangelical Christians in the United States, including members of the Christian Reformed Church, have historically tended to vote for the Republican candidate in presidential elections, according to a recent survey.

But that tendency is likely to change in this year’s election, meaning there could be a slight shift in support among evangelicals from John McCain, the Republican nominee, to Barack Obama, who wrapped up his race for the Democratic nomination last week, says the survey released today in Washington, D.C.

The survey, conducted between April 8 and May 10, 2008, was commissioned by the Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“The political landscape of the 2008 presidential election has appeared to change in some important ways,” says Corwin Smidt, a professor of political science at Calvin.

The Henry Institute National Survey on Religion and Public Life asked more than 3,000 people a wide range of questions about their religious beliefs, religious affiliation and religious and political behavior.

The results released Monday were only part of the overall survey. This section was titled “Religion and the 2008 Election: A Pre-Election Analysis.”

Although the study didn’t focus specifically on the CRC, the findings reflect a slight shift in party preference among evangelical Christians, says Smidt.
 
Smidt joined fellow Calvin professors Jim Penning and Doug Koopman, as well as Grand Valley State University professor Kevin DenDulk, at the podium in the Zenger Room at the National Press Club to present results of the survey.

In an interview before the press conference, Smidt said the study found that “a number of significant changes have occurred in the way in which major religious groups have historically related to the two major parties.

Those changes, however, are more evident among mainline Protestant denominations and to an extent among Roman Catholic voters who define themselves as being in the middle or center of the political spectrum than among evangelical voters.

“I think we will see a greater fluidity in this presidential election than there has been in the previous presidential elections over the last two decades,” says Smidt. “Mainline Protestants are for the first time since at least the beginning of the New Deal more Democratic than Republican in their partisan identifications.”

At the same time, though, the survey found that of all denominations and religious groups evangelical Protestants continue to “rank first in terms of the proportion of its members who identify themselves as Republicans.”

Evangelicals who are in the center of the political spectrum are the ones who, though still aligned predominantly with the Republican Party, are showing a shift toward the Democratic Party.  Even so, says Smidt, “evangelicals are likely to remain a primary base of support for John McCain.”

But it is also worth noting, says Smidt, that support for McCain among evangelical Protestants “does not fully match the level of support they expressed for Bush at roughly the same stage in the 2005 election process.”

The survey also found that differences in party preference tend to be greater within the denominations than between the denominations themselves, which reflects the growing diversity within denominations.

“Thus, religious beliefs and practices are beginning to replace religious affiliation as the primary religious basis of political cleavages,” says the study itself.

“One’s religious tradition affiliation continues to shape political tendencies, but such tendencies are even more shaped by the specific kind of person one is religiously within that particular denomination.”

The survey was funded in part by the Lynne and Harry Bradley Foundation. It was led by Smidt, director of the Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College.

To read more about the study, click here.