Margin For Error: Dems And The Values Voter
In the Hotline each week, polling editor Aoife McCarthy digs through the latest polls and public opinion research to bring readers the trends behind the numbers.
Here's last week's edition of Margin For Error.
Washington is always in a constant state of courtship -- stories, donations, and sources are always being chased. When it comes to the '06 battle for control, it's all about the votes. So who should campaigns be chasing in the upcoming election? In the installment of our series exploring the electorate, we are taking an in depth look at the electorate, rediscovering who they are, how they vote and why. What we discovered this week -- pious voters are hardly a new voter set, it's just that now, the Dems have come to realize their value. Thanks to the Univ. of MI American National Election Studies Guide (ANES), which provided the trends.
Church Attendance*
'04 '02 '00 '98 '96 '94 '92 '90 '88 '86 '84 '82 '80 '78
Every week 23% 25% 25% 24% 25% 28% 27% 27% 25% 27% 24% 28% 25% 25%
Almost weekly 12 12 11 13 12 11 11 11 11 11 11 12 12 11
1-2 month 15 19 16 14 16 13 14 14 14 13 14 13 11 12
Few/year 15 13 16 15 18 16 15 16 28 28 29 27 29 30
Never 35 32 33 33 30 33 34 33 12 12 14 11 14 14
No relig.pref -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 9 8 8 9 9 9
Religion Important Part Of Life?
'04 '02 '00 '98 '96 '94 '92 '90 '88 '86 '84 '82 '80 '78
Yes 77% 75% 76% 77% 78% 77% 78% 79% 78% 79% 79% ** 75% NA
No 23 25 24 23 22 23 22 21 22 21 21 ** 25 NA
Religion '04 '02 '00 '98 '96 '94 '92 '90 '88 '86 '84 '82 '80 '78
Protestant 55% 56% 55% 51% 58% 57% 59% 59% 65% 65% 62% 65% 63% 63%
Catholic 25 27 27 31 26 25 24 25 24 24 26 22 23 24
Jewish 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 3 3
Oth/None 17 15 16 16 14 17 15 14 10 10 10 11 10 10
Gender '04 '02 '00 '98 '96 '94 '92 '90 '88 '86 '84 '82 '80 '78
Men 49% 44% 44% 46% 46% 48% 46% 45% 43% 44% 45% 43% 44% 44%
Wom 51 56 56 54 54 52 54 55 57 56 56 55 57 56
Income '04 '02 '00 '98 '96 '94 '92 '90 '88 '86 '84 '82 '80 '78
1-16% 16% ** 14% 15% 16% 17% 15% 18% 19% 17% 15% 17% 17% 17%
17-33% 18 ** 25 18 17 15 18 16 13 15 18 17 16 18
34-67% 30 ** 30 34 37 35 30 31 35 36 35 30 36 31
68-95% 23 ** 26 26 25 30 31 31 30 27 26 28 25 27
96-100% 11 ** 5 8 5 4 5 4 3 4 6 8 5 7
Age '04 '02 '00 '98 '96 '94 '92 '90 '88 '86 '84 '82 '80 '78
'75-later 21% 17% 14% 12% 6% 5% 1% -- -- -- -- -- -- --
'59-74 30 36 32 31 34 33 30 30 22 19 16 10 7 3
'43-58 28 27 29 30 30 31 32 32 36 38 37 37 37 39
'27-42 16 13 17 17 18 18 19 19 20 20 21 21 23 25
'11-26 5 6 8 10 11 12 15 16 16 17 19 24 22 21
1985-1910 0 0 1 1 1 3 3 6 5 8 8 11 10 15
Before'85 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 1 1 1
So what do these numbers show us? Well first, more women vote than men. No shocker here, especially since they make up more of the general population. In regards to income, the more affluent are also the more prolific voters. But keep in mind that the ANES groupings are not evenly divided. Consider the bottom two brackets together to make up the low end of the spectrum (24% based on '04 breakdowns), the middle group stands alone (30%), and finally the top two groupings comprise the final 34%.
The most interesting demographic in this first installment of our electorate watch is the prominence of religion throughout the electorate. In '04, 77% say religion is an important part of their lives. In addition, 35% attend services weekly or almost weekly with another 15% attending once or twice a month, bringing the total of regular/semi-regular church goers to 50%. This is not something that Dems can ignore -- again that is. Looking back at the summer of '04, when it was still anyone's game, the Dems misstepped in a way they are coming to terms with today -- that is, they failed to address the the moral conscious of the nation.
A strict comparison of the platforms alone shows GOPers avoiding the pitfalls of the Dems. In sheer volume the GOPers spent more time addressing moral/values issues throughout their 92 pages. The word "family" appears more than 30 times and "value" nearly 40; Dems log barely more than half that. In addition to offering concrete ideas on gay marriage, abortion and welfare in the section entitled "Protecting Our Families," GOPers also offer a section on "Faith-Based and Community Initiatives," which aptly stems from a White House office of the same name dedicated to reaching out on a grassroots level.
It is true that religion and values are not always interchangeable terms, but if you ask the 77% of the population that say religion is important to them, there is no doubt a majority of them will say the two are closely tied. Now to the Dems' credit, they are trying and have made a concerted effort since '04 to not ignore major portions of the electorate, but the question that only poll results will answer is, will it be enough?
* The church attendance question wording was changed mid-trend. Until '88 the question was asked, if any religious preference: "Would you say you/do you go to (church/synagogue) every week, almost every week, once or twice a month, a few times a year, or never?" '90 and later: "Lots of things come up that keep people from attending religious services even if they want to. Thinking about your life these days, do you ever attend religious services, apart from occasional weddings, baptisms or funerals?" (IF YES:) "Do you go to religious services every week, almost every week, once or twice a month, a few times a year, or never?"
These numbers go back to the 1970s. Jimmy Carter was a devout Southern Baptist who was ridiculed for saying he had sinned in his heart. Ronald Reagan was a non-churchgoing divorcee who was lauded by the religous right.
There has been a contradiction here for years. A Democrat who lives their religous values and attends church quietly without trumpeting it is ridiculed for saying anything slightly religous. A Republican who doesn't attend church but screams their faith all the time is considered pious.
Heck, Kennedy was a churchgoing Catholic and that was considered a LIABILITY! Nixon never went to meeting after he left college and no one cared.
The numbers above only add to my confusion over why the "values" vote has gained a major emphasis.
The numbers seem rather consistent across a fairly substantial time period, were voters not taking moral questions into considerations before? Or is the "values" debate merely a victory for Republican strategists. The 35% who never attend is probably consistent as well given your description of the methodology change in 1988.
Should the Democrats really take the bait on this issue? It would seem that the Republicans have managed to shift the public debate away from issues that the government has direct influence over (e.g. economic policy, health care, foreign policy) and towards a focus on branding.
A politician's attempt to portray themselves as "religious" has become a proxy for actual debate.
The former executive director of the Missouri Republican Party has an interesting LTE in Monday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch titled "Generic Theocracy". http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/A432DB81E126B6498625710D000A05BB?OpenDocument
Perhaps the Dems can find a "third way" (not an original title, I know). Given the importance of compassion, service, and honesty in religious teaching, the Dems could respect religious belief by showing them how policy will really affect voters. They could pull in health care, math and science education, and Republican scandals all at the same time, just for a start.
NAR, you miss the point. Voters want religious-based results from their politicians. Whether GWB attends church services regularly or not has no bearing on his base. He gave the religious Right Roberts and Alito. He opposes gay marriage and activist judges. Jimmy Carter talks about how every abortion is a tragedy, yet he took no steps to curtail the practice as president. When a Ted Kennedy speaks about his Catholic faith, nobody buys it. They remember him getting kicked out of Harvard for cheating and abandoning Mary Jo Kopechne in the submerged car.
The majority of the church-going electorate want abortion severely curtailed, judges that uphold constitutional law rather than inventing it, respect for the traditional family unit, and a truly color-blind society based on meritocracy rather than enforced diversity. They aren't going to get these results from today's Democratic Party. No strategy in the world will trick them into supporting a Jimmy Carter-like candidate.