February 2008 Archives

Despite the prominent role of religion this campaign season, exit pollsters have not asked religion questions of Democratic voters in most of the primary contests so far and only limited religion questions of Republican voters. Zogby International has been asking religion questions of likely voters in its pre-election tracking polls and gave Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly exclusive access to that data. It offers a picture of how religious voting groups are leaning this year. Among the highlights: Hillary Clinton has done consistently well among Catholics and especially white Catholics. Barack Obama and Clinton have divided the white Protestant vote, including white born again Protestants. Obama has consistently won black Protestants, especially in South Carolina, and Clinton has won Hispanic Catholics. Obama has done especially well among the most and the least religiously observant. John McCain and Mitt Romney were in a tight competition for white Catholic and white Protestant votes, and although Mike Huckabee has been doing well among evangelicals, he is still not the consensus candidate for born-again Protestants.

Click here to see the polling data.