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Poll: Romney holds almost 50-point advantage among white evangelicals
President Obama continues to lead Mitt Romney among the general electorate and independent voters, but the presumptive Republican nominee earns more than three times as many white evangelical voters as the incumbent, according to a new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute.
According to the poll, Romney earns nearly seven in 10 — 68 percent — of white evangelicals, versus just 19 percent for President Obama. That's far below the national average, where the president leads Romney 47 percent to 38, and far more dramatic than the candidates' performance among other religious demographics.
“The survey signals that white evangelical Protestant voters are moving beyond the reservations they may have held earlier in the campaign about Romney’s Mormon faith,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, PRRI CEO, in a statement. “While two-thirds of white evangelical voters say that it is generally important that a presidential candidate share their religious beliefs, their differences with Romney on religion are not translating into a significant lack of support at the ballot box.”
Obama also holds leads among white mainline Protestants, leading Romney 50-37 percent. And the president shows strength among religiously unaffiliated voters, leading Romney 57-22 percent.
The poll showed that a majority of voters — 58 percent — said that it was either not too important or not at all important for a presidential candidate to share their religious beliefs.
That number could be down significantly because neither candidate seems to have connected with the electorate on religious grounds. Only 38 percent say Obama's religious beliefs are similar to their own, versus a mere 30 percent for Romney. Around half of voters correctly identify Romney's faith as Mormon.
The president's decision Wednesday to publicly express support for gay marriage might have been partially influenced by an acknowledgment of his standing in the polls among evangelicals. Already trailing dramatically within the group — among the most vocal opponents of same-sex marriage — the president's campaign team might have decided there was a reduced risk in endorsing gay marriage.
But on Wednesday, Obama said the politics of the announcement were not yet clear.
"I think it'd be hard to argue somehow this is something I'd be doing for political advantage, because, frankly, the politics — it's not clear how they cut. But I'm not going to be spending most of my time talking about this because frankly, my job as president right now, my biggest priority, is growing the economy and making sure we put people back to work," Obama told ABC News.
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