Religion And The 2012 Election

The 2012 United States presidential election is unique in one way. Hundreds of fundamentalist preachers decided to endanger the tax-free status of their churches by making a political endorsement from their pulpit during religious services. They demonized the president, and tried to convince their followers that voting Democratic was anti-christian. But while they may have convinced some of their followers that this was true, they were unable to swing the election in favor of the Republicans -- and the president was re-elected by a significantly large margin (both in the popular vote and the electoral college).

But it does bring up the question of just how much participation religious people had in the 2012 election -- and who did these religious people vote for? The folks at the Pew Research Center have tried to answer that question for us. Using exit polling, they came up with the following numbers. You can make up your own mind about how accurate these numbers are, but Pew did a pretty good job of polling in the pre-election polls. Here's what they found:

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION OF 2012 VOTERS

Protestant...............53%
Catholic...............25%
Jewish...............2%
Other faiths...............7%
Non-religious...............12%

VOTING PATTERNS OF RELIGIOUS GROUPS

All Protestants
Obama...............42%
Romney...............57%

White Protestants
Obama...............30%
Romney...............69%

White Evangelical
Obama...............20%
Romney...............79%

White Non-Evangelical
Obama...............44%
Romney...............54%

Black Protestants
Obama...............95%
Romney...............5%

All Catholics
Obama...............50%
Romney...............48%

White Catholics
Obama...............40%
Romney...............59%

Hispanic Catholics
Obama...............75%
Romney...............21%

Jewish
Obama...............69%
Romney...............30%

Other Faiths
Obama...............74%
Romney...............23%

Non-Religious
Obama...............70%
Romney...............26%

Mormons
Obama...............21%
Romney...............78%