Pew: Religion and the 2012 South Carolina Republican Primary

[cbayer]

http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Religion-and-the-2012-South-Carolina-Republican-Primary.aspx


ANALYSIS January 23, 2012

In his South Carolina Republican primary win, Newt Gingrich received strong support from born-again/evangelical Christians and from voters who said that it is important to them that a candidate shares their religious beliefs. Gingrich also won a plurality of votes among Protestants (42%); Catholics in the National Election Pool exit poll were more evenly split between Gingrich (37%) and Mitt Romney (29%).

Gingrich was the clear winner among the two-thirds of South Carolina primary voters who described themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians, earning 44% support. Romney (22%) and Rick Santorum (21%) finished far behind Gingrich among evangelical voters, while Ron Paul received 13% support from this group.



Romney fared significantly better among the one-third of South Carolina voters who did not describe themselves as evangelical Christians than he did among evangelicals; 38% of non-evangelicals voted for Romney, compared with 33% who supported Gingrich, 15% who voted for Paul and 10% who backed Santorum.

[Jim__]

1. The most surprising stat from that poll is that 2/3 of the primary voters were ...

born again/evangelical. I had no idea they had that level of representation in any state.

[cbayer]

2. That's up from 60% in 2008.

[onager]

14. Partly a problem of definition

Depending on the poll, "born again/evangelical" voters range from 47% (Gallup) to 7% of the population (Barna Research Group). That's a huge range, as the linked article below notes.

One problem: Pew (and Gallup) use self-classification when they ask voters this question, so it's kind of vague. That's how Gallup came up with estimates of 47 percent born again/evangelical in 1998 (and 41 percent in 2007).

The Barna Research Group frames the question in terms of specific religious beliefs. That's how Barna came up with a number of only 7%.

http://www.usnews.com/news/campaign-2008/articles/2008/09/24/the-evangelical-vote-how-big-is-it-really

Personally, I trust the Barna Group approach - partly because founder George Barna himself is an evangelical Xian. If anyone knows how to ask pertinent polling questions of Fundamentalists, he does.

Yes, I am a hard-core atheist. And IMO, Barna's personal beliefs sometimes lead him to draw...goofy conclusions from his data. e.g., one of his polls showed atheists/agnostics were less likely to be divorced than Fundamentalist Xians.

Barna explained that it was probably because non-believers were more likely to "live in sin" before marriage, so when they did marry, the relationship was already solid.

Still, I've never seen any evidence of him cooking or spinning his data. His poll results often leaving the Fundies sputtering in outrage, which just tickles me to no end.

e.g., at the height of "Monica-gate" in the 90's, when Bill Clinton was being denounced from nearly every Fundie pulpit, a Barna poll showed that two-thirds of evangelicals still supported Clinton - about the same number as the general public.

After 9/11, when most preachers claimed Americans were rushing back to the churches, Barna polls disproved that claim. His polls showed a temporary uptick in church-going right after the attacks, followed by church attendance slumping back to its ususal low level.

I can waste hours at the Barna site, looking over their polling data. It's often fascinating:

http://www.barna.org/

[cbayer]

15. This is great information.

I have often wondered how the statistics concerning evangelicals were obtained and had no idea.

Although one can clearly see evidence of them, it has always seemed to me that their numbers were much lower than being reported. Rovian tactic?

Great stuff. Thanks for the info.

[onager]

16. I wondered myself...

...why those numbers were always all over the map. While Mr. Barna would probably love it if the number were a lot higher, he's most likely closer to the real number of evangelicals than the exit-pollers.

Kicking up the numbers is definitely a Rovian tactic!

FTR, since the SC Primary, I've had quite a few emails from relatives and friends in SC. None voted for Newt, and in fact despise him. Most were very surprised (and disgusted) that he won the Primary. I believe the nicest word I heard for him was "hypocrite."

I spent the Xmas season in SC and don't remember even hearing much on the news about Gingrich. Most of the political news dealt with Romney and Bain Capital.

During Romney's watch, Bain bought a business in SC - a division of Hallmark Cards. Bain strip-mined the assets and fired all the employees. That was all over the SC media while I was visiting. So he wasn't very popular heading into the Primary, even though the GOP establishment tried its best to pump up enthusiasm for him.

[dmallind]

3. To be honest less of an effect than I would have guessed

I wonder if it would have been different with a candidate who could be seen as both viable (Santorum is out) and "fundy-ethical" (Gingrich is out) as well as evangelical - and preferrably Protestant.

[cbayer]

6. The vote was quite split in 2008 as well, with Huckabee (who seems to meet

the criteria you outline) getting 43%. But perhaps Huckabee wasn't really seen as viable.

[dmallind]

8. At the time he [robably was. Good info - bit more impact than in 12 but yes less than I expected. n

[MarkCharles]

4. What was that saying someone like Barney Frank said about Newt?

"Newt Gingrich is a dumb person's idea of a what smart person looks like" something like that.

[Dorian Gray]

13. I've never heard that quote before

but it made me LOL.

[moobu2]

5. The words Christian, Republican and Tea Party

are becoming synonymous.

[cbayer]

7. What in this data would lead to that conclusion?

[MarkCharles]

9. Anybody notice that the columns don't add to 100?

Column 1 (ALL Religions) comes to 98%

Colum 2 (Born agains) comes to 101%

Colum 3 is the only one that adds up.

Of course, I assume there's some rounding going on but in Column 1 why is it under 100?

[Jim__]

10. The error in column 1 is due to the n/a under "Other/No answer"

Based on the other 2 columns, that should be 2%.

The result in column 2 is due to a normal rounding error.

[MarkCharles]

11. Why round at all? Are we not capable of understanding numbers to 3...

decimal points?

Rounding is for simpletons and second graders who cannot yet add to 100.

The big news here is that Christians vote for a guy with his background, and feel proud of it, as Newt calls Obama the food stamp President.

[Jim__]

12. There is no information in the 3rd decimal digit.

Under optimal assumptions, the margin of error in this poll is 2%. Displaying data in tenths of percentage points implies a precision that the data does not contain.