Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Church attendance and political ideology among Republicans and Democrats

Gallup polling gives insights into the religious and ideological make up of the Republican and Democrat parties. Democrats are less likely to go to church than Republicans and more liberal.

The
polling found that 52% of Democrats seldom or never go to church. 27% weekly and 20% said nearly every week or monthly. That compares to 38% of Republicans who never go to church, 40% who go weekly and 21% go weekly or monthly.

46 percent of Americans say they seldom or never went to church, while 20 percent said they went to church nearly weekly or monthly, and 33 percent said they went weekly.

On political philosophy, among all Americans, 42% identify themselves as conservative and only 21% liberal, which is a two to one difference. Since 2008, conservatives gained 2 percentage points while liberals lost one point.

The parties are not surprisingly also split on political ideology. Among Democrats, 20% say they're conservative, 42% moderate and 37% liberal. Among Republicans 68% say they're conservative, 26% moderate and 6% liberal.

The thing that surprises me is liberals aren't the largest segment among Democrats. It's those who identify themselves as moderate. And not so suprising is there's movement to the right nationally



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