Religion and Politics in the United States: Nuances You Should Know

[YoungDemCA]

Old article (from 2003) by Chip Berlet, but there are still relevant points here.

snip:

While on average older Evangelicals tend to lag slightly behind the average U.S. resident in education and income, there is a "continuing trend toward the GOP, as younger, better-educated, and wealthier Evangelicals replace an older, less upscale Democratic political generation. Evangelicals who are politically or socially active, especially conservatives, seem to be increasingly upwardly mobile, suburban, highly-educated, and with above-average incomes, contrary to many popular stereotypes. One group of scholars found that between 1978 and 1988, "Christian Right activism occurred predominantly in rapidly growing—and relatively prosperous—suburban areas of the South, Southwest, and Midwest."

snip:

One study has suggested that as the more socially conservative and doctrinaire Christian Right Evangelicals have expanded their control of the Republican Party, members of more liberal major Protestant denominations have backed out of being active in the Party, and many have stopped voting Republican, some going so far as to declare themselves as Independents.They are reluctant, however, to vote Democratic without a compelling reason.

snip:

The arguments from the Democratic Leadership Council that Democrats need to move to the center to attract these and other voters and thus win elections, however, are not based on persuasive factual evidence. Teixeira and Rogers have found that when Democratic candidates offer clear leadership and stress progressive and liberal issues such as economic fairness, health care, education, and the environment, that many voters will set aside their conservative social issue concerns and reject Republican candidates. According to Teixeira and Rogers, many of these voters are part of the White working class.[20] This is the same demographic group among Christian Evangelicals that tend to vote Democratic or not vote.

We need to distinguish between people who believe abortion is a sin and those who attack clinics—a tiny fraction of Christians who oppose abortion. We can challenge both groups without unfairly lumping them together. We need to abandon focus group phrases such as "religious political extremist" that demonize observant Christians by falsely implying they are linked to neonazi race hate groups. Every direct mail letter that raises funds by demonizing Christian evangelicals in general as "The Radical Right" sets back the movement for progressive social change.

In election 2000 in state level races, when Blacks and labor union members turned out and voted for a specific candidate, the Christian Right and conservative candidates often lost the election.[23] This shows that if we build truly democratic progressive coalitions that include Blacks and other people of color, labor union members and other wageworkers, women, people in LGBT communities, environmentalists, and progressive people of faith, we can consistently outvote the Christian Right.

Full article: http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v17n2/evangelical-demographics.html