The 2008 evangelical vote: A retrospective
November 6th, 2008 | Back in June, I wrote a post entitled Are evangelicals abandoning their political agenda? in which I argued that there was a shift happening in the American religio-political scene. I said:
Either way, the evangelical agenda of old doesn’t carry the same weight as it used to. The reign of the Religious Right is coming to an end, and young evangelicals are thinking for themselves. And when that happens, politics begin to look a little more messy than the easy-solution, tried-and-true dichotomies would have you believe.
I’m not, by any means, claiming that I discovered this trend. In fact, I wrote follow-up post called Obama and evangelicals: Summer of love which pointed to articles popping all over the media that all said essentially the same thing.
Now that the election is over, I figured I’d take a look at how the evangelical vote turned out. Thankfully, most of the analytical work has already been done. Sure, I could have compared CNN’s 2004 and 2008 exit polls, or used the New York Times’ fancy exit poll slider, but there’s no need.
Obama and Religious Voters is a great overview of how things turned out. The verdict? Obama made some headway, but not as much as was expected:
Even though Obama was not successful nationally in breaking the Republican hold on white evangelicals, he did make modest gains on Kerry’s percentages in North Carolina, Ohio, and Colorado. Although many evangelicals say they are embracing an agenda beyond the culture wars, Obama’s position on abortion rights is still a deal breaker for many white evangelicals who were considering voting for him, said David Gushee, a professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University.
I guess we shouldn’t really be surprised. The numbers:
According to exit-polling data analyzed by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Obama improved his performance among every religious group over John Kerry’s performance in 2004, although his gains among white evangelicals (a 3 percent to 5 percent increase, depending on how you measure it) and white Catholics (a 4 percent gain) were far more modest, and McCain maintained a majority of both those groups and white mainline Protestants. (McCain won white evangelicals 74 percent to 24 percent; white mainline Protestants 65 percent to 34 percent, and white Catholics 52 percent to 47 percent.)
But among nonwhite Christians, a growing part of the electorate, Obama’s increases were “dramatic,” said Pew senior fellow John Green. He also noted that the important story of Obama’s win among religious voters was “what happened to minority Christians,” including black Protestants (Obama got 95 percent of the black vote, up from 88 percent for Kerry), Latinos, most of whom are Christian (66 percent, up from 53 percent for Kerry), and Asians (61 percent, up from 56 percent for Kerry).
If this interests you at all, I recommend reading the whole article. What are your thoughts? Has anyone come across other post-election articles analyzing the evangelical vote?
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My thought is purely that there are two evangelicalisms. You see it every Sunday. There is one that trends older and cares more about their tribe. And there is one that trends younger which cares about the tribes in their community. One leaned one way while the other leaned the other way.
I maintain this simple fact. I know hundreds of youth workers, Christian leaders, and other folks who supported Obama vocally, privately, and even financially/time. I don’t know a single person who gave to the McCain campaign, volunteered to help, or would even admit they were planning to vote him.
Yours is the first piece I’ve read analyzing the evangelical vote. I want to read more.
My decidedly unlearned assessment is that there is still a huge gulf of fear and single-issue voting amongst white evangelical and Catholic voters. Most of the Catholics I know voted for McCain because of the pro-life issue. Almost every evangelical I hear becomes apopleptic because of the pro-life issue (ranging in comments from Obama is pro-choice to he’s a pro-abortion zealot).
Their secondary issue is that Obama is a socialist. As a commenter on my blog wrote: “his socialism is to the real thing as caffeine-free diet coke is to Coke syrup.” In addition, most people who call Obama a socialist use such a broad definition of the term, that they must then also call GWB a socialist because of his handling of the current economic crisis. This is a fact most white evangelicals try to ignore.
In addition, as the above commenter went on to write: “What could be more Christian than communally deciding to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and give drink to the thirsty? What could be more Christ-like than giving someone your shirt and jacket when all he asked for is your jacket? And if we don’t want to do that as a nation, maybe we don’t really want to be a Christian Nation after all.” Many evangelicals like to pick and choose which sort of Jesus their so-called Christian nation is going to look like. But I’m pretty sure He wouldn’t look like the local Young Republican Club inasmuch as most white evangelicals would like us to believe.
The biggest thing that struck me Tuesday night when I watched McCain’s concession speech (which was the most fabulous, gracious speech I’ve seen) was how homogeneous the crowd of supporters was. They all looked the same … white, country-club types. This was diametrically opposed to the crowd I’d been a part of the night before at an Obama rally and that was seen at his acceptance speech in Grant Park Chicago … a cross section of everyone; all ages, all ethnicities, all kinds of clothes, everything. All ages were represented within the different ethnic groups too.
If the evangelical church wants to survive, it is going to need to figure out who it serves. Hint … not the power structures in Washington. It’s going to have to remember the red words of her Master and go there. Because right now we are increasingly being known for our ugliness and sliminess (the NYTimes called the Dobson 2012 letter the 3rd most slimey campaign tactic this year) rather than our love for each other.
Phew … okay … I’m … ummmm … stepping down off my soapbox now. Sorry about that. I guess I had a lot to say. Sheesh. ;-)
I crack up every time I hear that Obama is a socialist. It’s as if they don’t even read the papers. Did they not know that a Republican president just pushed Congress to buy our banking and mortgage industry. the federal gov’t now owns most loans in our country (mortgage, personal, and school) and people want to blame a man who hasn’t even taken office! It’s as if they don’t even see that the real socialist is the dude already living in the White House.
What I saw, and what sickened me, was the fear-mongering. Christians disowning Obama. I just can’t wait for him to be wildly popular and wildly successful so more and more evangelicals can say, “James Dobson doesn’t speak for me.”
Adam: I don’t personally know anybody who donated or got involved in the McCain campaign either. I am pretty sure there were people at my church who voted for McCain based simply on dumb lies perpetuated by mass-forwarded emails. We’ll do anything if we’re scared enough, I guess.
Sonja: The homogeneity is a huge deal for me as well. I love the diversity that the Obama campaign represents. And you’re right… the GOP has some soul-searching to do.
Jake and Adam – you both need to expand your circles evidently. When over 70% of evangelicals voted for McCain it tells me that you only talk to people you agree with.
I know plenty of people on both sides, and most have very thoughtful reasons for supporting the candidates they did. I supported McCain, but no Jake it wasn’t because of some dumb e-mail declaring him to be a Muslim. It wasn’t because of fear. It wasn’t because I’m racist (which I’m not). It was because I disagreed with his policies, and I was much closer to McCain than I was with Obama. Jake your contention that people who voted for McCain at your church did so based on “dumb lies” (which by the way I found any critique of Obama was considered to be a dumb lie) is just absolutely ridiculous.
Sonja is right that the GOP has some soul-searching to do, but it isn’t because of the content of our ideas. It was because they were largely abandoned by those in Congress and President Bush. By the way, Sonja, as a conservative I cringed over the bailout bill as well. I’m not happy that President Bush signed it into law, and wasn’t happy that Senator McCain voted for it.
Adam, your characterization about older or conservative evangelicals is just plain offensive and untrue. I’m conservative, and guess what? I work with poor families and high-risk kids! Most of my volunteers… guess what? They are older conservative evangelicals. I have a hard time getting younger volunteers because they are “too busy.”
Many conservative evangelicals that I know care deeply about loving their neighbor. So I would say that your comment is at best naive or worse disingenuous.
Shane: Thanks for weighing in.
You took my comment out of context and/or misinterpreted me. In responding to Adam, I was speaking from my actual personal experience, which I did not translate to a generality about McCain supporters. I actually received some of the emails circulating around members from my church — one of which equated Obama to Hitler. Moreover, I have spoken with members of my church who were convinced that nothing worse could happen than the election of Obama. So my contention is NOT ridiculous — it’s based on my lived experience among my community.
Again, I’m not jumping from my localized experience to generalities about McCain supporters and/or the GOP. I have no doubt that many, many people (evangelicals included) voted for McCain for reasons beyond abortion. To deny that fact would be near-sighted and incompetent on my part.
I know you and I disagree on some things, but let’s keep it amicable.
I’ll respond a little bit more later on the detail. But I just want to state again. I do not know a single person in my circle (you can argue the size of which if you’d like) who was an ardent supporter of John McCain. The flip side is I know tons of people who supported Obama financially and giving of their time to campaign.
My statement is generalizing. Trends are, of course, general statements. To point out 1 or 2 exceptions to that as proof that a generality is untrue is misinterpreting the term “generalization.”
Not to bash on republicans at all, as this was my first election of voting for a democrat… the nation spoke loud and clearly on Tuesday. The electoral college was clear.
Jake,
I don’t doubt there has been horrible e-mails that has gone out (I’ve received a few).
You certainly know your church better than I do. I shouldn’t have said that statement was ridiculous.
The comments rubbed me the wrong way, but I should have been tempered in my response.
So I apologize, and I hope that you can forgive me.
Adam, I’m not denying that there are evangelicals who supported Obama, or there are evangelicals who do not care about those outside of their own community.
I also don’t deny that Obama had a solid win among the electorate. He campaigned well, he had a message that resonated and circumstances that worked in his favor.
But what you shouldn’t do is assume trend by your own personal experience. Regarding McCain, for many evangelicals who are conservative he was not the first choice (I was originally a Huckabee supporter), so he didn’t inspire the type of excitement that Obama supporters showed.
Shane- Just the reality of politics here. The hardcore conservative Bush didn’t win the hearts of Americans at large. And while many people, including myself, think he represented evangelicalism quite well in the Oval Office… the pendulum was going to swing as it always does. We went from 8 years of a moderate Clinton to the far right of Bush. Now we’re swinging to the far left with Obama.
As for your comment about the trends… I don’t know your network of friends, but my tribe is pretty diverse. I maintain this as a fact… I don’t know a single person who was a hardcore McCain supporter while I know tons and tons of evangelicals who HUGELY support Obama.
The age of the one-issue evangelical vote has come and gone. We care about more than abortion.
And, like you alluded to, Huckabee was the obvious evangelical choice but the chances of him winning were 0% in 2008. My firm belief is that the Republicans put McCain up as a sacrificial lamb in full knowledge that:
a. They had to nominate him at some point, even if he wasn’t electable.
b. It didn’t matter who they put up, it was a democratic year.
I long to see evangelicals going to the polls representing issues beyond abortion. If GW Bush couldn’t move that issue, it’s time for a new approach.
I, for one, believe in the sovereignty of God over our own desires. It’s my prayer that evangelical leaders yield their support to the man who won an overwhelming majority on election day. Further, I hope we retire people like Jim Dobson. Their age of political influence has passed.
I’m going to step outside of the current conversation and recommend another source for data about evangelicals and this elections. While it was based on a pre-election survey (data on their website here), last week’s (10/31) broadcast of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly was a great insight into the young evangelical vote. You can see the video and transcript here or check out their video or audio podcast.
Josh: Thanks for the links, man. I’ll check ‘em out.