BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: There has been a lot of faith-based mobilization surrounding these midterm elections, and what happens next Tuesday (November 7) will help set the stage for the role religion plays in the 2008 presidential elections.

KIM LAWTON: In suburban Detroit, Catholic activists, including several nuns, are working a last-minute phone bank to get out the vote. They are calling likely Catholic voters in southeast Michigan and urging them to vote for Democratic candidates.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1 (on phone): I'm very concerned about the common good.

LAWTON: In Nashville, Tennessee, evangelical activists are rallying support for a state constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. Meanwhile, candidates across the political and theological spectrum are making unprecedented religious campaign appeals. It's all part of the multifaceted role religion is playing in these midterm elections.

Professor ALLEN HERTZKE (Director of Religious Studies, University of Oklahoma): You might say that candidates are using a stained-glass strategy across the board.

LAWTON: Allen Hertzke is director of religious studies and professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma.

Prof. HERTZKE: In my 20 years of following the religious scene, I have never seen religion as politicized as it has been this year in the congressional/gubernatorial races. And so what we're going to see, I think, is it set the stage for a highly politicized religious environment in 2008.

LAWTON: According to a new Pew Forum survey, nearly 70 percent of all Americans say liberals have gone too far in trying to keep religion out of government. That includes 60 percent of all Democrats. But at the same time, almost half of the public believes that conservative Christians have gone too far in trying to impose their religious values on the country.

Political strategists are working hard to find a winning mix of religion and politics. It's a new effort for Democrats, who have struggled in recent years over how to deal with religion. This campaign season, in addition to shoring up their traditional black church base, many Democratic candidates have been reaching out to Catholic, mainline Protestant, and even evangelical communities.

Prof. HERTZKE: There's a whole apparatus now developing around the Democratic Party that is attempting to frame issues in a way that has religious resonance, and so I think the Democrats, in fact, have learned a lesson that you can't ignore religion, and you can't cede that territory to the Republicans.

LAWTON: According to Professor Shaun Casey of Wesley Theological Seminary, the Democrats have been strategically targeting states that are expected to play a decisive role in 2008.

Professor SHAUN CASEY (Wesley Theological Seminary): If you start with Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan, certainly there's a lot of effort by Democrats in those areas. And if you can show that religious outreach produces actual electoral dividends in those states and those closely contested races, it's going to reverberate out from there. I think everybody who is going be running for the nomination in the Democratic Party is going to have some form of religious outreach probably for the first time in the history of the party.

LAWTON: The efforts have been putting pressure on the Republicans who are trying to mobilize their religious conservative base while at the same time pulling in new voters. Georgetown University's Professor Clyde Wilcox says that challenge will only grow during the presidential election season.

Professor CLYDE WILCOX(Georgetown University): Well, the difficulty with the Republican Party is that if you take a very strongly Christian right set of positions on issues, that appeals to the base and helps you win primaries, but it can alienate moderate voters in the general election.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: The seven key themes of Catholic social teachings are included here… LAWTON: In the midst of it all, Roman Catholics are one of the most important blocs of voters. Catholics are by no means a unified bloc. In 2004, a narrow majority voted for George W. Bush. But those voters are not firmly in the Republican camp. Many political advocacy groups have been competing for Catholic attention this fall, especially in pivotal states like Ohio and Michigan.

Prof. HERTZKE: The Catholic community is absolutely essential. They are the quintessential swing voters in American politics today, and the candidate who wins the Catholic vote is likely to be the one who will win the presidency. It is that important.

LAWTON: Conservative evangelicals have been rallying their ranks as well. They made up 40 percent of Bush's total vote in 2004 and have a massive church-based get-out-the vote machine. And they intend to be a significant factor.

TONY PERKINS (President, Family Research Council, speaking at Nashville rally): Because we've got an important election coming up and we as Christians need to speak and we need to vote our values.

LAWTON: Experts wonder whether any presidential candidate in 2008 will be able to command the religious support that Bush received in the last two elections, particularly from evangelicals.

Prof. CASEY: He had been working for almost 15 years courting that constituency in various ways, and it took him a long time to build, to overcome the initial mistrust, and you have to give him great credit. He exhibited great political skill in reaching out and unifying what had been a badly divided group of religious communities. I don't see anybody on either side replicating that.