Monday, November 10, 2008

Evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for McCain, but according to Barna they're a smaller percent of Americans than you might think.

Evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for McCain over Obama. According to a survey by George Barna it was 88% to 11% respectively. Barna finds though evangelicals represent only 7% of all adults. The reason for the small percentage is Barna uses a more detailed definition of evangelicals based on their theological beliefs.

When pollsters ask individuals to self identify themselves, 41% of individuals who voted identified themselves as evangelicals. Of this 41% only 16% would fit the theological meaning of the term evangelical. Of the self described evangelicals 61% voted for McCain and 38% for Obama.

It would be interesting to see how that dynamic played out among Catholics. Self identified Catholics voted for Obama over McCain by a 56% to 43% margin. Though I'm sure it's much less than the self identified "born again" or "evangelical" split, I wouldn't be surprised if the truly devout Catholics went for McCain., particularly because of his views on abortion and homosexual marriage.



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