Romney’s faith should be no obstacle for Evangelicals

Evangelical Christians cast a large and consistent share of America’s vote. Despite the common wisdom among conservatives, white Evangelicals — the group specifically measured by exit pollsters for the last two presidential elections — actually turned out in slightly larger numbers in 2008 (26 percent of the electorate) than they did in 2004. In both years, they gave Republicans roughly three-quarters of their votes. So John McCain’s loss to Barack Obama four years ago was not due to disaffected Evangelicals staying home on Election Day.

Democrats would lose every presidential election without a robust and lopsided African-American vote. But Republicans are even more dependent for their victories on white Evangelicals.

In that context, it has become a major question in 2012 whether Republican Mitt Romney has an “Evangelical problem.” The suspicion among some quarters of the Evangelical community concerning Romney’s Mormon religion is well-known. Pastor Robert Jeffress expressed this last fall with his comment that Mormonism is “a cult,” and that Evangelical voters “ought to give preference to a Christian instead of someone who doesn’t embrace historical Christianity.”
Read the rest here