Religion Remains a Strong Marker of Political Identity in U.S.

[cbayer]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/174134/religion-remains-strong-marker-political-identity.aspx?utm_source=tagrss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=syndication

July 28, 2014

Little change in basic relationship over last six and a half years

by Frank Newport

PRINCETON, NJ -- Even as overall party identification trends in the U.S. have shifted over the past six and half years, the relationship between religion and party identification has remained consistent. Very religious Americans are more likely to identify with or lean toward the Republican Party and less frequently identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with those who are moderately or nonreligious.


Political Party Affiliation, by Religiousness, Monthly Trend, February 2008-June 2014

Gallup classifies Americans as "very religious" if they say religion is an important part of their daily lives and that they attend religious services every week or almost every week. That group constituted 41% of all U.S. adults in the first half of 2014. "Nonreligious" Americans (30% of Americans in 2014) are those who say religion is not an important part of their daily lives and that they seldom or never attend religious services. The remaining group, 29%, are classified as "moderately religious." These people say religion is important in their lives but that they do not attend services regularly, or that religion is not important but that they still attend services.

From 2008 to June 2014, nonreligious Americans have been the most Democratic of the three religious groups, with a net Democratic value ranging between +38 and +19 over that period. Those who are moderately religious have also tilted Democratic, with net values ranging from +23 to +1. Those who are very religious are least Democratic, with net values in the negative range, meaning that on average, this group identifies with or leans toward the Republican Party more than the Democratic Party.

All three groups were more Democratic and less Republican in 2008 and early 2009, reflecting the generally more Democratic tilt of the country at that time, but the differences among those who are very, moderately, or nonreligious were as significant then as they are now. In short, the religious gap in party identification has persisted over nearly seven years.

more at link

[merrily]

1. If they asked if people had spirituality or faith, versus asking if

they are religious or very religious, the outcome of the poll might change.

But, then, the results might not be consistent with the agenda of the poll.

I think "religious" conjures up images of attending formal religious services, and some polls do phrase the question in terms of attending religious services regularly.

I think there is room between the images that "religious" conjures up and absence of any kind of faith or spirituality.

However, if you are anti-abortion and that issue for you looms larger than other issues in your faith, you probably are going to vote Republican, even though that issue is more for the courts ultimately.

Ditto, if your faith has partnered with Republican politicians to one degree or another, content to ignore their utter contempt for people in need. How people who profess Christianity applaud at the prospect of a person being left outside an Emergency Room door to die for lack of health insuance is well beyond me.

[cbayer]

2. What do you see as the agenda of the poll?

I have found Gallup's polls on these topics to be pretty neutral.

These are the categories that they have used for a long time. I guess changing them would eliminate the ability to compare across time. They do have other polls that use different kinds of definitions.

The results aren't very surprising, but the consistency over time is a bit. I would have hoped to see some shift.

[merrily]

3. And I see Gallup as decidedly right-leaning.

Among Democrats, at least, I am not alone in that view, either.

https://www.google.com/search?q=gallup+is+right+leaning&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US fficial&client=firefox-a&channel=sb

I could just as well ask you to support your claim that Gallup is consistently neutral.

[cbayer]

4. I've heard that before, but I don't agree.

I think when it comes to religious matters, they and PEW are the most neutral. I base that on having looked at a lot of their polling data and never seen it as particularly partisan at all.

I still am not sure what you see as the agenda here.

[merrily]

5. But, that poll issue involves both politics and religion, not only religion.

I base that on having looked at a lot of their polling data and never seen it as particularly partisan at all.

And I base my statements on looking at the same info and finding it decidedly right-leaning. In other words, we have different opinions about it. I don't think my opinion about Gallup in that respect is an outlier among leftists.

[cbayer]

7. I'm not challenging your perception of this. I just don't agree with it.

And I do look primarily at their polls on religion and politics, not just politics.

But I am still not clear what you think their agenda may be. If they are right leaning, as you state, what would it be?

BTW, I just did some research on this and found some really interesting information. In short, the left thinks Gallup is right-leaning and the left thinks Gallup is right leaning. Not an uncommon finding and most likely to become an issue when polls have findings that certain groups don't like, lol.

[merrily]

12. The right thinks almost everyone is left leaning, including mass media. Clearly, that is false.

But I am still not clear what you think their agenda may be.

I never said I knew precisely what the agenda of the poll was. And it is not necessary to know the precise agenda in order to assume (reasonably) that polls had agendas, especially polls whose results are announced publicly. However, I can think of many possible reasons that the right in general, and/or the religious right, would want a poll to say that religious people lean right decidedly.

[cbayer]

15. You may be interested in looking at the conclusions at the bottom of the report.

It seems decidedly non-partisan to me. I think it's important to analyze data such as this, but jumping to the conclusion that it is somehow invalid and biased doesn't really provide much. In the end, the poll points out that there are huge swaths of the American public that don't identify with republicans. And since young people are leaving the religious right in rather large numbers (there is polling data on that), this survey would seem to be bad news for the republicans.

Bottom Line

The relationship between Americans' religiousness and their party preference is a persistent and well-documented social pattern that has remained extraordinarily stable over the last six and a half years. The basic nature of the relationship -- in which those who are the most religious are the most likely to identify as Republicans -- has changed little. With few exceptions, Americans' religiousness remains a major predictor of their political orientation.

The underlying explanations for the relationship are complex, and have to do with the historical development of partisan politics in the decades since Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were president, differing positions of the parties on moral and values issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, and geographic patterns of residency that are simultaneously related to religiousness and partisanship.

From a practical politics standpoint, Republicans face the challenge of expanding their party's appeal beyond the minority of Americans who are very religious, and appealing to Hispanics and Asians given that even the most religious of these growing groups tilt Democratic, albeit not as much as others in these groups who are less religious. Democrats face the challenge of attempting to broaden their party's appeal beyond the base of those who are moderately or nonreligious, a tactic that most likely will require effort to frame the party's positions on social justice and equality issues in a way that is compatible with a high degree of religiousness.

[merrily]

17. We established several posts ago that you and I have different about opinions about the same info.

[cbayer]

18. So, I guess the best thing to do would be to agree to disagree.

Even so, I think this data is good news for the left.

[merrily]

20. Good news for the right.

[merrily]

6. BTW, most people who pay pollsters to take polls have an agenda.

Since pollsters want the continued business of the people who hire them, it is safer and more practical to assume that most polls have one agenda or another than it is to assume neutrality. And we don't often see or hear about the background of a polls, only the headlines about its results.

How the polling sample is selected, which questions are asked and in which order, and which questions are NOT asked, how questions are worded and so much more affects the outcome of a poll that we hear announced on the news, but we are not often privy to it.

Not to mention that people lie to pollsters. I know I have. Whether I like a leftist or not, I support him or her when I am polled, if I don't trust the question.

Usually questions are phrased in such a way that a thoughtful person neither agrees nor disagrees, yet you don't get to give an essay answer. They are usually looking for knee jerk. I think asking people if they are religious versus asking about faith or spirituality or, perhaps better yet, morality and ethics, could be an example of that.

[cbayer]

8. I understand that very well and I am very wary of polls that are underwritten by certain groups

or individuals.

This survey isn't' and it is one of the reasons I tend to trust Gallup. Plus there methods, which are defined in the report, are hard to fault.

But I agree with you generally. Polls should be looked at closely and taken with a grain of salt. The fact that supposedly neutral polls can come up with significantly different findings is a testament to how inadequate polling data can be.

At any rate, it should be no surprise that degree of religiosity positively correlates with conservative/republican identification and vice versa.

[merrily]

9. Who hired Gallup to do this poll?

[cbayer]

10. No one hired gallup to do this poll.

They are independent. Who did you think hired Gallup and what do you think their agenda was?

[merrily]

11. No one hires Gallup to do polls? Is that what you think "independent poll" means?

[cbayer]

13. Yes. What do you think it means?

I'm not sure what you are getting at here, but I remain curious as to what you thought the agenda was and how it is reflected in the results.

Perhaps you misspoke, which would be ok.

[merrily]

14. I know it what it means. It means that the poll is done by a professional pollster, as

opposed to one done in house. For example, the Hillary campaign may do a poll itself, or it may hire a professional pollster. "Professional," implying people who do polls for a living.

How did you imagine that Gallup has been paying for its operations during all the decades that Gallup has been in business, if no one pays Gallup to do polls?

Edited to change "ling" to "living."

[cbayer]

16. Gallup is a professional polling organization and does not do these polls "in house".

That would make them independent, right?

I don't think you really know much about Gallup and would encourage you to do a little research in order to answer your own questions. Gallup has other means of raising revenue.

[merrily]

19. You've said it incorrectly.

Gallup's job is doing polls, so yes, Gallup does polls "inhouse." I never questioned that Gallup is not part of the GOP or of Hillary's campaign or anything of the sort. Therefore, I never questioned that Gallup is an independent pollster. Rather, I questioned what you think "independent" means. Among other things, it does not mean "neutral pollster" or pollster who does not get paid.

Actually, I would encourage you to do a little research before concluding that no one pays Gallup to do polls.

[cbayer]

21. Lol, only if they are polling their own employees about their own organization.

Thanks, I've done my research and Gallup does do polls for money. But that is not the case here.

It's been fun talking to you. I hope you had a wonderful day.

[merrily]

22. Thanks for the dismissal, but I'll post anyway because you are mistaken

about what doing a poll inhouse means.

Let's say Comcast has a legal problem. They could have their own legal department do it, meaning their own employees do the work. That is doing the work inhouse.

Or they could hire an independent law firm (meaning an independent contractor, though not necessary a neutral one) which is not doing the work inhouse.

When I spoke of the Hillary campaign doing a poll inhouse, I did not mean that the Hillary campaign asks other people who work for Hillary the poll questions. I meant that they take responsibility for the poll. So, it is not an independent poll. If they hire someone who takes polls for a living, then that poll is independent, not a poll done inhouse.

Similarly, all polls conducted by Gallup are, by definition, done by Gallup inhouse. That does not mean that Gallup employees ask each other the poll questions.

Thanks, I've done my research and Gallup does do polls for money.

Um, yes, as I have been trying to tell you for several posts and as, until today, I assumed everyone realized. And contrary to what you said in more than one post. Your definition of "independent pollster" was also outside what I thought everyone understood. Ditto your understanding of what "inhouse" means. Yet, you are the one telling me to do research, LOLing at what I post because you don't understand what terms mean and being dismissive of me. Go figure.

[cbayer]

23. Sorry, didn't mean to insult you. I just felt that the

discussion had gotten rather circular and was unlikely to go anywhere.

Thanks for the info. I'm going to continue to look closely at Gallup polls and post them when I think it's appropriate to do so. As with most polls, you are free to interpret them anyway you like or dismiss them completely.

[merrily]

24. Sure seemed like you meant to. Then again, you said

your intent was not to challenge what I was posting, and it sure seemed like you were challenging



I do accept your apology, but I am trying to be real. I was starting to wonder if you were part owner of Gallup.

As with most polls, you are free to interpret them anyway you like or dismiss them completely.

Yes, I know. First and foremost, I never assume there is no agenda. People are loyal to themselves and their families and therefore to their businesses and therefore to the people who hire them. Even when people try to be objective, the human tendency is to pull for your client, whether you are a consultant or a lawyer, etc. Even Supreme Court Justices, who get paid by all the people and are supposed to be objective, are clearly not neutral. Why assume a pollster is neutral?

[cbayer]

25. Well, it is possible to challenge and disagree and still stay civil.

That's pretty much what DU should be about, imo.

I have no interest in Gallup other than it is one of the few groups that does a lot of polling on religious matters that I trust. PEW is the other one. As you note, most polling about religion is done by organizations with a rather clear objective.

You are right to never assume that there is no agenda, but I don't think you are right to assume there is one. And that is where this conversation started. If you can identify an agenda, then you certainly have grounds to dismiss or even laugh at the results.

I would never assume a pollster was neutral without looking closely at what they do, and it appears that you would not either. In that way, we are different than a great majority of the american public who swallows what they read on the internet whole. Even worse, they often quote it and use bad data to make points. That is infuriating.

I am curious as to why you see these results as favoring the republicans. As I pointed out, the numbers of non-religious are growing while the very religious are shrinking. Looking at this, that would mean more people would be identifying as democrats.

[merrily]

26. Nothing wrong with challenging on a message board.

But, if you are challenging, you should, IMO, be aware that is what you are doing, rather than deny it.

I am curious as to why you see these results as favoring the republicans.

You said it was good news for Democrats. I said it was good news for Republicans.

Among many other things, Republicans are delighted to have a religious base. I once asked a Republican atheist why she was encouraging the Republican theocrats so much. She replied, "Before we had them, we didn't control Congress." Not 100% historically accurate, and she was not a profession pol, but nonetheless.... When things like contraceptives and choice became controversial politically, the right saw its move and it made it, in spades

I think they can use these poll results to get more loyalty and more funds from a religious base against the "godless Democrats." And this comes as even religious people are starting to become uneasy with the culture wars over homosexuality and contraceptives, both of which issues are closely tied to traditional religious teaching and therefore to how much support Republican politicians get from the religious right.

How the GOP wants a religious person to vote is one thing. How God wants a religious person to vote is quite another.

This fits right in with the memes about Democrats Republicans have been pushing for years, Godless baby killers. "Hollywood liberals." Divorces and affairs--no family values. No morals. And, once that started to become dated, they spit out "secular humanists," as if theocracy were the way to go.

That will have to be it for me on this thread.

[cbayer]

27. Republicans have a religious base.

Nothing about this poll makes that more or less the case. In fact, what is says is that it is not changing - they still appeal to the "very religious".

I guess they could use this, but as the summary points out, it is not the religious right they need to recruit, it's everybody else.

Again, nice talking to you. I won't take your leaving as a dismissal.