TruthBook Religious News Blog

2 of 3 white voters identify themselves as evangelical Christians

Duncan Mansfield, Associated Press
Thursday, November 13, 2008

Their presidential candidate lost and their influence in national politics may be waning, but white evangelical Christians clearly dominated the 2008 election in Tennessee.

Even for a Bible Belt state that is headquarters to the Southern Baptist Convention, their majority was surprising — two of every three white voters in Tennessee identified themselves as evangelical Christians in exit polls.

This in a state where 84 percent of the voters were white, according to surveys of 1,520 randomly selected voters by Edison Media Research for The Associated Press and television networks.

McCain carried Tennessee convincingly, and the white evangelical turnout likely contributed to Republicans taking control of both chambers of the Tennessee Legislature for the first time in 140 years.

Out of the 40 states where exit polls asked voters if they are born-again Christians, only Arkansas had more white evangelicals than Tennessee. Arkansas had 55 percent. Tennessee and Oklahoma each had 52 percent. For Tennessee, that was virtually unchanged since 2004.

The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, meaning white evangelicals actually could make up anywhere from 48 percent to 56 percent of Tennessee’s voters.

Arkansas is home to Mike Huckabee, the former governor and ordained Baptist minister who beat McCain in the Republican presidential primary in Tennessee in February.

White evangelicals made up 26 percent of voters nationwide in this election.

They voted 3-1 for McCain across the country and in Tennessee. But for the first time in several election cycles, white conservative Christians weren’t a factor in the national contest. Obama won easily — 53 percent to 45 percent — without them.

Tennessee exit polls showed that a presidential candidate’s values were most important to about a third of voters overall, but to an even greater number — 41 percent — of white evangelicals.

More than half of white, evangelical Christians in Tennessee said the economy was the No. 1 issue, slightly fewer than all voters statewide, followed by terrorism, slightly more than voters across the state.

Tennessee white evangelicals were far more likely to be Republican and live in East Tennessee.

White, evangelical Christians were 44 percent Republican, 37 percent Independent and 19 percent Democrat, compared with Tennesseans overall, who are 32 percent Republican, 37 percent Independent and 30 percent Democrat, according to the poll.

They represented two of every three voters in East Tennessee and slightly more than half the voters in the rural counties of Middle and West Tennessee. They were just less than half the voters in metropolitan Nashville and about two of every five voters in greater Memphis.

Labels: Barack Obama, Duncan Mansfield, election, evangelicals, John McCain, Tennessee, voters