Religion has undoubtedly played a key role in this year’s presidential race, with an ordained Baptist preacher, a Mormon adherent, and a falsely rumored Muslim fueling an already heated and unprecedented election. Although some of the religious characters have dropped out, religion will continue to be important in the race as large numbers of Christian voters could be the deciding factor in upcoming contests.
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(Photo: AP Images / The News & Advance, Kim Raff)Delores Hubbard, center, votes at the St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Lynchburg, Va., for the presidential primary vote on Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008. Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton looked to Virginia Tuesday and forecasts for a huge presidential primary turnout for an edge in their deadlocked race.
The Democratic candidates are both eyeing Pennsylvania, the biggest remaining prize with 158 delegates, on April 22. Pennsylvania has a large population of white Catholics and mainline Protestants, much like the state of Ohio in which Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) won last week, according to John Green, senior fellow in Religion and American Politics at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Green, who is one of the nation’s foremost experts on religion and politics, noted that Clinton’s good performance among Ohio’s religious voters – she won about two-thirds of both white Catholics and white Protestants – may help her capture another win in Pennsylvania. Exit polls showed Clinton also won the white Catholic and white Protestant vote, about three-fifths, in Texas last week.
“There are also some other contests that offer a similar opportunity for the Clinton campaign: One is the Indiana primary on May 6,” Green highlighted in an interview with Pew Forum posted Friday.
He added, “West Virginia (May 13) and Kentucky (May 20) have large numbers of white Protestants, especially evangelicals.”
But Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) may have an edge in Mississippi (Mar. 11) and North Carolina (May 6) because of the states’ large population of black Protestants.
In addition to black Christian support, the Democratic frontrunner is said to be gaining among white Catholics and Protestants, especially after the Super Tuesday Contests on Feb. 5. He performs particularly well among young and well-educated white Christians.
“If the contest goes to the end of the season, one of the key states may be Oregon (May 20),” Green predicts. “Oregon is known for having a very large number of unaffiliated voters, many of whom identify with the Democratic Party.
“It will be very interesting to see how the campaign might play out if two candidates who have been touting their religious credentials and mobilizing religious voters come to compete in a state with a large number of unaffiliated voters.”
Unaffiliated voters, as defined by Pew Forum, include atheists, agnostics, and those who describe themselves as “nothing in particular.”
On the Republican side, presumed GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) still needs to work on gaining the support of his party’s religious voters. Although McCain won by a large margin both in Texas and Ohio last Tuesday, former Republican candidate Mike Huckabee beat him among white evangelical Protestants in both states. However, McCain was not too far behind with nearly half of the evangelical vote.
But if Huckabee campaigns for McCain “it could really help McCain in the fall campaign,” Green predicted.
“If nothing else, Huckabee has established himself as one of the most prominent evangelical political leaders in the country,” the Pew senior fellow on religion and politics said.
“There has been criticism that he continued the campaign after it became clear that McCain was likely to win, but in doing so, he got to meet with a lot of evangelicals around the country,” Green explained. “He got a lot of votes from evangelicals in various states, even states where he lost. This may serve Huckabee very well with the future plans he may have.”
In regards to the general election, Green predicts that Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants could play a pivotal role given that these groups have had significant impact on both the Democratic and Republican primaries and caucuses.
“What that (large numbers of Roman Catholics and mainline protestant voting in both parties) reveals to me is the kinds of divisions that exist within those religious communities. It may be likely that many white Roman Catholics vote Democratic in the fall and others vote Republican,” Green offered.
“And, of course, some will be in the middle and possibly could be persuaded one way or another. So it is interesting that two of the largest religious traditions in the United States, white Catholics and mainline Protestants, may turn out to be among the key swing voters in the fall campaign.”
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Regarding this issue of this rev. Wright's comments, has anyone heard any comments from Jesse Jackson on this issue? If so please direct me to the site. Thanks.
Hey Hinnis,
Excellent post and info, Thanks. It is ridiculous for anyone to be so naive as to believe that Obama attend Wright's church and believe that he walked away not believing as his "spiritual advisor" advised. It is kind of like thinking you can hang around a mechanic shop for 20 years and not getting any grease on you. It doesn't happen. The day my pastor starts speking messages of condemnation regarding anyone is the day my family and I walk out and never return.
stop calling Obama a muslim due to his name. cmon on now
i prayed and voted for Prez Bush and i am stand by him because I believe God wanted him in office. I know things are peachy creame but they never are and the public is able to hear more about it nowadays.
Obama views are far from Gods views im confused how christians can vote for him.
i am also tired of terms like black christians...who cares .....their christians.
gut how can a christain side with abortion, and sins like that?
Yes, Barack Hussein Obama is a muslim. I will do whatever I can to keep him out of the white house.
christianity was a reason why george w bush got elected. pat robertson even supported this so-called 'christian'! look what happened to this nation - stuck in iraq, thousands dead, thousands wounded, $1.8 trillion dollars wasted, disrespected the US constitution. we, who question the competence of this president, have to suffer for the so-called 'morality' demanded by others.
I agree that it is inappropriate to falsely claim that Obama is a Muslim, although I don’t believe that being a Muslim in and of itself should be anything about which someone should be ashamed. I do think, however, it is important for America to better understand the kind of “Christianity” which has so fascinated Obama for the last 20 years. Obama claims to belong to a Christian Church called Trinity United Church. He considers the just-retired pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to be his “mentor and spiritual advisor.” According to the church’s website, their members are “unashamedly Black and unashamedly Christian,” and swear allegiance to the mother continent, Africa. Obama’s church gave the racist and Jew-hating Louis Farrakhan a “lifetime achievement award” last November. Rev. Wright teaches Black Theology, and thinks about everything pretty much in terms of black versus white. He called 9/11, for example, a “wake-up call to white people.” Commenting on the recent murder of Natalie Holloway, he decried the press coverage by stating that “one 18—year-old white girl from Alabama gets drunk on a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and gives it up while in a foreign country, and that stays in the news for months.” Rev. Wright likes to throw around the name of James Cone a lot when it comes to his theology. James Cone is another proponent of Black Theology. Here are just a couple of James Cone's quotes: (1) "To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people." [Black Theology and Black Power, pp. 139-140]. (2) "While it is true that blacks do hate whites, black hatred is not racism." [Black Theology and Black Power, p. 15] (3) "All white men are responsible for white oppression." [Black Theology and Black Power, p. 24] (4) "Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man "the devil." [Black Theology and Black Power, p. 40] (5) "If there is any contemporary meaning of the Antichrist, the white church seems to be a manifestation of it." [Black Theology and Black Power, p. 73] **** Need I go on? These are the kinds of concepts that Obama has been soaking up for 20 years. The focal concern or center of black theology is the white oppression of blacks. Therefore, the usual theological discussions about God, Christ, and salvation are much less relevant. Although I respect anyone’s right to belong to any religion they wish, this does not sound like a positive form of "Christianity" for any of those who are not members of the "chosen people." And, maybe Obama needs to be a little more candid about the brand of "Christianity" to which he adheres.