Spiritual Politics  

 state by state

Spiritual Politics blog

State by State

Leonard E. Greenberg Center

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State by state

Alabama 
Alaska 
Arizona 
Arkansas 
California 
Colorado
Connecticut 
Delaware 
District of Columbia 
Florida 
Georgia 
Hawaii 
Idaho 
Illinois 
Indiana 
Iowa 
Kansas 
Kentucky 
Louisiana 
Maine 
Maryland 
Massachusetts 
Michigan 
Minnesota 
Mississippi 
Missouri 
Montana 
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Nevada 
New Hampshire 
New Jersey 
New Mexico 
New York 
North Carolina 
North Dakota 
Oklahoma 
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Pennsylvania
Puerto Rico 
Rhode Island 
South Carolina 
South Dakota 
Tennessee 
Texas 
Utah 
Vermont 
Virginia 
Washington 
West Virginia 
Wisconsin 
Wyoming 

Polls

Republican caucus entrance poll
Democratic caucus entrance poll

Religious demographics chart

Republican Primary Results

Democratic Primary Results

Commentary

Democrat
Clinton and Obama split the Protestant vote (46 percent of the total vote), while Clinton racked up large majorities among Catholics (27 percent) and Jews (5 percent). The Nones broke slightly for Obama in a state with a significant number of them (18 percent), while the non-Judeo-Christians, at seven percent, preferred him strongly.

Republicans
Mormons constituted 26 percent of the vote and evangelicals 24 percent. Romney won both groups, with 95 percent of the former and 39 percent of the latter. In other slices, Romney prevailed with 60 percent of the Protestants (including Other Christians) and 35 percent of the Catholics (McCain got 22 percent). Ron Paul, who managed seven percent of the totals, dominated among the Nones, with 42 percent of their vote. Call it the Ayn Rand vote.

02 04 08    Latino Evangelicals    Mark Silk
In today's Sacramento Bee, Aurelio Rojas has an instructive profile of Samuel Rodriguez, Assembly of God pastor and head of the 18,000-member National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference--the go-to guy for presidential candidates interested in courting the Latino evangelical vote. Rodriguez is excruciatingly even-handed in his comments, finding a nice thing to say about all remaining contenders. Lurking not far beneath the surface is the problem the immigration issue has posed for the GOP. If the failure of the comprehensive immigration bill broke Rodriguez's heart, the embrace of anti-immigration politics by Republicans will only send his flock into the Democratic camp--where they swung in the last election (see here). In the 2002 congressional vote, Protestants who are neither white nor black (i.e. Latino evangelicals for the most part) split slightly in favor of the GOP. In 2004, they broke 58 percent to 42 percent for the GOP. But in 2006, they went Democratic, by better than 53 percent to 47 percent. This is not a a huge portion of the electorate--between three and four percent--but in heavily Latino swing states like Arizona and New Mexico and Colorado and Nevada, it can make a difference.

01 14 08    On the Church Stump    Mark Silk
Molly Ball's story in today's Las Vegas Review-Journal follows Obama campaigning around southern Nevada, including a visit to a COGIC congregation where the pastor did not disguise his political preference.  Obama had a full Sunday in Southern Nevada, first making a surprise appearance at a downtown black church, where he spoke at the end of the service. Before he arrived, the pastor of the Pentecostal Temple Church of God in Christ, speaking from the pulpit, advocated for Obama, possibly breaking the law. Pastor Leon Smith told the congregation that "the more he (Obama) speaks, the more he wins my confidence, and ... if the polls were open today, I would cast my vote for this senator."He urged them to do the same, saying, "If you can't support your own, you're never going to get anywhere. ... I want to see this man in office."
Under federal tax law, nonprofits such as churches are prohibited from endorsing or opposing political candidates. The Internal Revenue Service has ruled that the forbidden partisan activity includes speech from the pulpit that indicates the church favors a particular candidate.The campaign said the pastor simply had made supportive statements about Obama's record. The church could not be reached late Sunday.
As Obama took the stage, the church choir of mostly red-jacketed women swayed behind him, breaking into song at the word "change," the Obama campaign's byword. Obama spoke to the congregation of more than 400 for more than 20 minutes. He told them about his home congregation in Chicago and his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who is somewhat controversial for his black-separatist views.
There are faith forums and then there's the tried and true. For the record, nearly seven percent of the Nevada population is African American, according to the 2000 census. That's compared to two percent in Iowa, less than 1 percent in New Hampshire, and 30 percent in South Carolina.

01 19 08    Nevada Democrats    Reid Vineis
According to a CNN entrance poll, Hillary Clinton won among Catholics and Protestants with 54 and 58 percent of the vote respectively. Obama garnered the most votes among those who self identified as “Other Christian”, “Other Religion” , and “No Religion”. (56, 48, and 44 %) CNN interviewed 1098 voters.

01 19 08    Stop the Presses    Mark Silk
This, from the AP's "entrance" poll in Nevada:

RELIGION COUNTS
About a quarter of Nevada GOP voters were Mormon, and virtually all of them preferred Mitt Romney. Overall, about half of Romney's Nevada votes came from Mormons. Among non-Mormons, he had a slight lead over Ron Paul. National polls have shown that his Mormon religion is a problem for significant numbers of Republican voters. Romney and Mike Huckabee were doing best among white born-again and evangelical Christians."