News reports in recent days have probed what has been labeled as John McCain’s “Evangelical problem”. The columnist Robert Novak claims that “enthusiasm for McCain inside the Republican coalition is in short supply.” His column talked about the necessity of McCain traveling to Colorado Springs, the home of Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson. And the New York Times on Monday front-paged an article: ” McCain Extends His Outreach, But Evangelicals Are Still Wary”. The article, by Michael Luo, goes on to say “…one of Mr. McCain’s biggest challenges as he faces a general election contest with Senator Barack Obama [is] a continuing wariness toward him among evangelicals and other Christian conservatives…”
But as, Newport points out, the numbers don’t support the New York Times or Novak narratives. A bias toward Republican candidates among the highly religious has been the trend in recent years. And based on recent Gallup surveys, John McCain continues to fit this pattern. Newport adds this:
Among those who attend church weekly, McCain beats Obama by 19 points, 55% to 36%. Obama slips to a one point lead among those who attend nearly weekly or monthly. Among those who seldom or never attend church, Obama stretches his lead to 19 points, 55% to 36%, exactly the mirror image of the standing among those who attend weekly.
Newport also notes that black voters are both high in church attendance and heavy Obama supporters. So he suggests looking at the numbers just among whites. Here the McCain advantages swells even more:
As noted, there is even more of a McCain skew among white voters who attend church weekly – a good approximation of the key voting segment everyone is focusing on. Among this group of highly religious white voters, McCain wins by a 65% to 25% margin over Obama, for a gap of 40 points.
McCain’s advantage among white frequent church goers persists in red, blue and purple states, according to the Gallup polling.
We are spending a good deal of time analyzing the so-called “purple” states in which the margin of victory by either Bush or Kerry was 5 points or less back in 2004. Among white voters in these states, weekly church attenders choose McCain over Obama by a 62% to 28% margin, or 34 points. Not quite as bad as the 52 point margin McCain has among frequent church attenders in red states, and a little better than the 23 point margin for McCain in blue states. But an indication of the fact that McCain is actually doing pretty well among this key group in the key swing states.
I suppose it’s always possible to find some “religious leader” to pop off about a grievance they have with the McCain campaign. But the numbers suggest he’s pretty popular with this key voter bloc.
