Evidence of Evangelical Shift is still Slim

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Evangelicals may be shifting away from the Republican Party, but a recent poll doesn’t offer compelling evidence to support that claim.

The poll is another example of the need to examine numbers critically and cautiously, instead of taking them at face value.

Because the media consortium’s national exit poll, conducted by Edison Media Research, did not ask Democratic primary goers if they were evangelical or born-again Christians, Faith in Public Life and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a “progressive” think tank, commissioned Zogby International to conduct its own exit poll in two Super Tuesday states: Missouri and Tennessee.

Both of these groups, along with Sojourners founder Rev. Jim Wallis, have spent months trying to build a rhetorical storyline of evangelicals running away from the “Religious Right” and the Republican Party. Given that, it’s no surprise that their poll backed up their claims.

At best, the data are inconclusive. But many are likely to conclude that the poll and memo are examples of a group trying to be too cute with numbers and language in an effort to promote their cause and lead journalists to a particular conclusion.

According to the Faith in Public Life memo, the February 5-6 survey “demonstrates the diversity of evangelical voters and the need for more thorough polling and careful analysis.” That’s a safe conclusion, of course, but the report’s other conclusions are not nearly so persuasive.

According to the poll, 34% of white evangelical voters in Missouri and 32% of white evangelical voters in Tennessee participated in the Democratic primary. The memo treats these numbers as remarkable and a dramatic development, but a considerable minority of evangelicals have been voting Democratic for several decades. A February 11 Reuters headline captured this political reality well, “Polls show some U.S. evangelicals vote Democrat.”

But instead of just putting the numbers out on their own, Faith in Public Life offered a flawed and misleading suggestive comparison to the 2004 general election. According to the memo, “One in three white evangelical voters in Missouri and Tennessee participated in Democratic primaries. Comparatively, only one in four white evangelical voters in Missouri and Tennessee supported John Kerry in the 2004 general election.”

This is one of those “apples to oranges” comparisons that simply ought never be done. You can’t compare general election voter behavior from four years ago with primary election voter participation.

Primary and general electorates are very different in both their size and makeup. And since both Missouri and Tennessee have no party registration and open primaries, any registered voter can choose which primary to participate in. That means it is virtually impossible to draw conclusions about the makeup of either party’s electorate since there are almost certainly some crossover voters from the other party, as well as Independents, in the mix.

The folks at Faith in Public Life must have known that the media couldn’t resist the story. “White Evangelical Vote for Democrats is Up,” according to an online article for U.S. News and World Report. A Christian Post story trumpeted the same analysis. While acknowledging the lack of relevant historical data, Faith in Public Life still put forth the flawed 2004 comparison that would lead reporters to their desired conclusion.

“The media is operating with an outdated script,” according to Wallis, a widely known politically liberal evangelical, “And the experience I’m having on the road confirms the data.”

Wallis, who has been a leader in promoting the political irrelevance of religious conservatives, is simultaneously promoting his new book that hinges on the notion that evangelicals are becoming less Republican. So it’s not surprising that the data and anecdotal conversations from his book tour(s) match up with his vision for the evangelical community.

The net increase of Democratic evangelical voters is only one supposed take-away from the poll. Faith in Public Life is also trying to promote white evangelicals as a critical part of the Democratic coalition.

But by polling two Bible Belt states, it’s difficult to extrapolate out the percentages of white evangelical voters to the national Democratic Party. In 2004, white evangelicals made up 51% of the entire electorate in Tennessee and 35% in Missouri, so it’s not unreasonable to think that the percentage of Democratic evangelicals will be lower in coastal and New England states.

There is also a significant problem with the margin of error and small size of the subsamples in the poll, but that didn’t stop Faith in Public Life and Zogby from trumpeting the results.

The poll showed Sen. Hillary Clinton easily defeated Sen. Barack Obama among white evangelical voters. But the sub-samples were so small (n=76 in Missouri and n=116 in Tennessee) that any conclusions are not statistically reliable. Unfortunately, a February 13 WashingtonPost.com item (“Silver Lining for Clinton: Evangelical Support”) chose to publish it anyway, as did an online article at Christianity Today.

There are even some statistical problems within the white evangelical subsamples on the survey’s question about the “broadening agenda.” Because of the high margin of error in the Tennessee and Missouri GOP primaries, it’s unclear whether a majority of white evangelicals support a broader agenda at all. In general, the question’s wording virtually guaranteed the desired result since a small number of people are against “ending poverty.”

It’s likely that some evangelicals are moving away from the Republican Party at the moment, since almost every other voter group in the country is doing the same thing. But the numbers in the Zogby poll don’t prove it.

It’s wise to be skeptical of any survey conducted for an interest group with an agenda. It’s especially wise when methodological questions abound, and when the analysis accompanying the data seems forced.

This story also appeared on RealClearPolitics on February 17, 2008.

Media Buy Is the Message

By Nathan L. Gonzales

It’s going to be a long year for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Through 2007, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had a $35.1 million to $5.4 million advantage over the NRCC, and some Republican strategists privately express significant concern over how the financial discrepancy will play out on a district-by-district level.

In recent history, Republicans have enjoyed the financial edge. The NRCC spent more than $83 million in independent expenditures in 75 districts in the previous cycle compared with $67 million in independent expenditures in more than 50 seats for the DCCC. Now Democrats are looking at twice the financial advantage that Republicans had then, coupled with a favorable political environment.

Through the end of the year, Republicans didn’t have half the money they spent on just three suburban Philadelphia districts in 2006. The NRCC spent at least $3.5 million each in Pennsylvania’s 6th, 7th and 8th districts. And the two party committees combined for almost $18 million in spending in those three districts alone (Democrats ousted GOP incumbents in two of the three). That’s just one example of the spending battles the NRCC can’t afford this year.

In the previous cycle, the NRCC won 12 of the 31 seats where it spent at least $1 million and seven of the 17 seats where it spent at least $2 million. All but two of those seats were Republican-held. According to Republican operatives familiar with the 2006 races, the NRCC’s heavy spending played a critical role in keeping open seats in Illinois’ 6th district and Minnesota’s 6th district in the GOP column. It also helped to re-elect Reps. Jim Gerlach (Pa.) and Dave Reichert (Wash.). In other districts, such as Ohio’s 18th, even the NRCC’s $3.4 million wasn’t going to keep that seat in the Republican column.

With a new majority, Democrats do have significantly more seats to defend.

“Democrats might have a fundraising advantage, but we will have terrain and issues in our favor,” NRCC press secretary Ken Spain said. “In a presidential election year, Democrats will be forced to defend a number of incumbents who have walked the plank for [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.] over the course of the previous two years.”

But individual fundraising by Democratic incumbents has been strong, with fewer resources the NRCC is going to be forced to prioritize.

“The challengers basically won’t get a dime,” one GOP strategist said.

Both committees generally give first priority and focus to incumbents, followed by open seats and then challenger races. With a number of vulnerable incumbents and more than two dozen open seats to defend, GOP challengers shouldn’t expect much more than a pat on the back from their campaign committee. If Republicans aren’t able to keep the DCCC on the defensive, more Democratic money could be freed up to challenge GOP incumbents.

NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) has explained to his colleagues that the days of campaign welfare are over and that incumbents will no longer be rewarded for incompetent campaign operations. In fact, then-Indiana Rep. John Hostettler’s (R) loss in the previous cycle was probably a net gain of a couple of million dollars for the NRCC going forward. He was an abysmal fundraiser, and the NRCC frequently had to bail him out financially.

Even if Republicans keep pace with Democratic fundraising this year, the NRCC still will face a huge financial disadvantage. That means the DCCC could spend at least $1 million in each of anywhere from 15 to 25 races without a paid response by the NRCC.

Depending on the media market, that could translate into anywhere from a two-week to two-month onslaught of Democratic ads. Of course, in some cases, Democratic money and message may not be enough to swing a heavily Republican district. But in a competitive open-seat or challenger race, $1 million unanswered could be very significant.

Republicans also are defending seats in very expensive media markets. In the New York City media market, the NRCC will have to decide how much to spend on the New Jersey open seats (the 3rd and 7th districts) and Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays’ 4th district seat. The NRCC will also have to decide if Democratic target Rep. Vito Fossella needs help in New York’s 13th district.

In the Chicago media market, Republicans are playing defense in Illinois’ open 11th and 14th districts, defending incumbents in the 6th and 10th districts, and hoping to target Rep. Melissa Bean in the 8th district. It costs about $647 per point for critical third-quarter television advertising there (according to Media Strategies and Research), meaning a solid, weekly ad buy will cost the committee at least a half-million dollars. In 2006, each party spent more than $3 million in Illinois’ 6th district race alone.

The softening economy could help both parties by stabilizing or lowering ad rates nationwide, one GOP consultant said.

The presidential contest continues to be a key unknown factor in this cycle’s House races. According to one Republican operative, the NRCC may be able to get away with not spending money on phones and direct mail this year and rely, instead, on normal presidential turnout driven by the Republican National Committee and the presidential nominee.

And as the Democratic presidential contest drags on, it’s unclear whether the overall political dynamic and landscape of House races will shift. Right now, Republicans are defending about twice as many competitive seats but would embrace Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) as the Democratic nominee to galvanize the GOP base.

It remains to be seen how some of the Democratic freshmen in Republican-leaning districts perform in a presidential year. Republicans are consistently confident that presidential- year voters will come out and support the GOP candidate. But $1 million from the DCCC in a race can go a long way in muting some of that natural Republican advantage.

“At the beginning of the cycle, a victory would have been not losing seats. Today we’re cautiously optimistic that we’ll pick up a couple,” DCCC Communications Director Jennifer Crider said. “We are realistic about the challenges ahead: We’re trying to beat history by staying on the offense, defend against Republican 527s with hundreds of millions of dollars, and have 75 seats in play — all in a challenging fundraising environment.”

One change from previous cycles could be the NRCC’s spending on polling. In the past, the committee has split the cost of surveys with vulnerable incumbents. But with limited resources, that responsibility may fall completely to the candidate. A “brush-fire” survey costs about $8,000.

In general, the NRCC will have to decide how much of its limited resources it will spend on polling to determine where to place the rest of the money.

This story first appeared in Roll Call on February 12, 2008. Copyright 2008 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Kennedy’s Decision to Back Obama Not So Decisive After All

By Stuart Rothenberg

Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy’s endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president was a huge story in the national media.

Dave Espo of The Associated Press said the Senator “is in a position to help Obama court voting groups who so far have tilted [Sen. Hillary Rodham] Clinton’s [D-N.Y.] way.”

Almost everyone who commented on Kennedy’s Jan. 28 endorsement said it was a big deal. Admittedly, I disagreed, preferring to stay consistent with my column of July 16, 2007, in which I argued that most endorsements in high-profile presidential contests don’t matter much.

Now that last week’s primaries are over, we can see whether the endorsement mattered. We can also evaluate the exit poll question that asked about the impact of the Kennedy endorsement.

Establishing (or disproving) a causal connection between an endorsement and a vote choice is difficult, leaving a lot of room for differing interpretations. But that should not dissuade us from taking a look at the available data.

In a piece published before Kennedy’s formal endorsement, Susan Milligan of The Boston Globe said Kennedy would campaign for Obama by focusing on “Hispanics and labor union members, who are important voting blocs in several Feb. 5 states, including California, New York, New Jersey, Arizona and New Mexico.” Espo made a similar point, though he added “lower-income, older voters” to his list.

Kennedy did indeed travel to those states and try to woo those voters for Obama. In the five states that Milligan mentioned, Clinton won four and is narrowly leading in the fifth (New Mexico). It’s possible, of course, that she would have won them even more convincingly had Kennedy not endorsed and campaigned for Obama, but the outcomes certainly at least suggest the endorsement’s effect was minimal, at best.

The Massachusetts Senator’s greatest potential impact was widely viewed as among Hispanics. Yet it was Clinton who generally won Hispanics, often overwhelmingly.

Clinton carried Hispanics in California (with 69 percent), Arizona (55 percent) and New Jersey (68 percent). In Illinois, Obama’s home state, Clinton drew “only” 49 percent of Hispanics. She ran 8 points better among them than among white voters in the state. And in New Mexico, the site of one of Kennedy’s rallies for Obama, Clinton won Hispanics by 20 points (56 percent to 36 percent), but lost white voters to Obama.

Clinton also won older voters and union members in most states, two other groups that supposedly might be swayed by Kennedy’s support for Obama. Given all of these results, it’s difficult to make the case that Kennedy’s endorsement was important.

Finally, there is the exit poll question that asked Super Tuesday respondents how important the Kennedy endorsement was, and it is to this question that I’ll now turn.

I checked 10 Super Tuesday states with primaries and found that in two of them (Illinois and Arizona), at least half of those polled said that the endorsement was “very important” or “somewhat important.” In another six states (California, Massachusetts, Georgia, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Mexico), 43 percent to 49 percent described the endorsement as very or somewhat important.

At face value, those responses suggest that the endorsement was significant. But if you look deeper, it appears that instead of the endorsement prompting people to vote for Obama, the causality worked in the other direction.

I believe that people who voted for Obama — and would have voted for him anyway — told pollsters that the endorsement was important, even if it actually had no impact on their vote choice.

As Obama supporters, they were excited by the endorsement. Moreover, journalists and talking heads told them the endorsement was a big deal. Given that, when pollsters asked about the endorsement, many respondents said it was important.

Here’s the evidence: In California, according to the exit poll, 19 percent of Democrats said Kennedy’s endorsement was “very important.” Yet almost half of those people (45 percent) voted for Clinton. Another 50 percent in California said Kennedy’s endorsement was “somewhat important,” yet almost half (47 percent) voted for Clinton.

In other words, almost half of voters in California who said the Kennedy endorsement was important didn’t vote for Obama. And that trend appeared everywhere else as well, thereby undermining the responses.

In only two states, Georgia and Illinois, did voters who said the endorsement was “very important” go overwhelmingly for Obama. And in both cases, other factors than the Kennedy endorsement (race and home-state loyalty) seemed far more important.

It’s wise to be very skeptical about survey questions that ask voters to identify their own motives, and the Kennedy question is a perfect example of why.

Ultimately, the Kennedy endorsement wasn’t important. It didn’t change things. That doesn’t surprise me. As I have argued before, this is the kind of race where voters look at the candidates and make up their own minds.


This column first appeared in Roll Call on February 11, 2008. Copyright 2008 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

New Print Edition: Illinois 11 & Kansas 3

The February 8, 2008 print edition of the Rothenberg Political Report is on its way to subscribers. The print edition comes out every two weeks and the content is not available online. Subscribers get in-depth analysis of the most competitive races in the country, as well as quarterly House and Senate ratings, and coverage of the gubernatorial races nationwide. To subscribe, simply click on the Google checkout button on the website or send a check.

Here is a brief sample of what's in this edition...

Illinois 11: Raising the Stakes
By Nathan L. Gonzales

If you look up “Republican headaches” in the dictionary, you’ll probably see a picture of Illinois’ 11th District. Last fall, Cong. Jerry Weller announced that he would not seek reelection, leaving Republicans with an open seat to defend in the very expensive Chicago media market.

Meanwhile, Democrats successfully recruited State Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson into the race, and she is proving to be a tenacious fundraiser. New Lenox Mayor Tim Baldermann coasted through the GOP primary last week, but faces a steep fundraising gap…and the possibility that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama might be on his party’s national ticket. Get the whole story in the print edition.

Kansas 3: Moore Vulnerable?

Republicans in Kansas haven’t been able to agree on much over the past few years, but it looks as if they might be rallying behind a common cause: defeating Congressman Dennis Moore (D).

Since his initial election to the 3rd District, Republicans have set their sights on the Democratic congressman. The problem is that usually too many Republicans want to take him on and a bitter primary fight between moderates and conservatives ensues.

Meanwhile, Moore continued to solidify himself in a Republican-leaning district. But this cycle, state Sen. Nick Jordan is the likely Republican nominee, and he won’t have to wrestle a member of his own party for it.

There is no question that Moore has proven his ability to win, but he sits in the kind of district that could be vulnerable to a drag from the top of the Democratic ticket. Get the whole story in the print edition.