How Religion Played a Part in Voting

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at how different religious groups voted around the country this past Election Day. Following the 2004 election, in which George W. Bush won over nearly 80% of evangelicals, the Democtratic party made a concerted effort to appeal to faith-based voters. By meeting with various clergy people and holding "faith rallies," the campaign managed to show people that social concerns can be considered moral issues. At the same time, the Dems -- and President-elect Barack Obama -- made a point of showing that while they were trying to appeal to the Christian faithful, they were also supportive of the rights of people from other religions, and even those who claimed no religion at all.

One of the things that's interesting about this report is that 54% of Catholics voted for Obama over McCain, despite Obama's stance on abortion rights. This is most likely because Catholics, as a group, tend to vote based upon a variety of issues rather than just one or two. Many of the newer Catholic voters are Hispanic, and the Hispanic population is an increasing group among registered voters.

Meanwhile, the New York Times (About.com's parent organization) reports Obama pulled in the young evangelical vote. In addition to visiting Christian colleges, Obama's people made an effort to "humanize him as a person of genuine faith, so that even those pastors who opposed him would be hesitant to attack him publicly." The young evangelicals also tend to focus on larger-picture issues such as improving the environment, eradicating poverty and war, and eliminating torture.

The Jewish Daily Forward says that while about 78% of Jewish voters picked Obama, he had to work to earn their votes, particularly since a large percentage of them had originally supported Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Democratic party focused efforts on having full-time liasions within the Jewish community to answer questions and address concerns, while the Republican party seems to have only gotten interested in the Jewish vote in the last couple of months of the campaign. Another issue at hand appears to be some concerns among Jewish voters about the conservatism of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Opinion polls indicate that the Jewish population continues to identify more "with Democratic attitudes toward tax policy, health care reform, abortion and church-state issues."

So what about us Pagans? How did we vote? Well, there's no official exit poll, but the folks over at Witchvox did a little pre-election tallying of their own. Of nearly 3,500 votes case online, over 70% chose president-elect Obama as their candidate. Anecdotally speaking, many of the Pagans I've spoken to who normally vote Republican -- particularly those in the military -- were not pleased about John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate. The general consensus seems to be that those folks voted Democratic because they couldn't get behind the McCain-Palin team.