GOP Owes 'Prayer of Thanks' to Evangelicals
Wednesday, November 05, 2014
Republicans sealed control of the Senate with more than six seats needed, a momentum Reuters suggested the GOP owes to evangelical voters.
FOX News exit polls showed that nearly 60 percent of voters who identified themselves as Protestant or Christian also identified themselves as Republican.
"If Republicans win control of the Senate in the midterm elections they should say a prayer of thanks for Christian conservatives," Reuters reporter Alistair Bell wrote more than a week ago.
Studies suggest the voting block may be shrinking, but it's still a considerable force. The latest Reuters-Ipsos polling shows Evangelicals are more enthusiastic about the midterms than the general population.
Forty-nine percent of evangelicals said they had a great deal of interest in the midterm elections, compared to 38 percent of other voters.
Pollster George Barna estimates there are 77 million evangelical and Catholic voters in America. About 30.6 million of them supported Mitt Romney in 2012, and 20 million voted for the President.
But the troubling number is the 26 million who didn't bother to vote at all.
A recent Pew Research study found 56 percent of Americans feel religion is losing influence in American life and say that's a bad thing. That same study showed 49 percent of adults feel churches should express their views on social and political questions. That is up 6 percent from four years ago.
