"God Gap" has Narrowed

Statistics are now coming in on how religion seems to have factored in during the US election earlier this week. In a Washington Post article online (click here), Alan Cooperman is reporting this morning that Democrats have "sliced the GOP's advantage among weekly churchgoers to 12 percentage points, down from 18 points in 2004 congressional races and 22 points in the 2004 presidential contest."

Cooperman is reporting that conservative religious voters did not stay home this time as James Dobson has tried to argue, but did tend to vote less Republican and more Democrat. "In fact, white evangelical Protestants turned out this week as heavily as they did in 2004, making up roughly 24 percent of the electorate both times."

Among the other interesting findings, Democratic candidates seemed to do better when they found a way to discuss their personal spirituality with voters. "In the states where Democrats fielded candidates who were able to speak credibly about their faith, they made larger gains."

Comments on any of this are welcome.