Will Obama win white evangelicals in Utah?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Alas, we will never know, but I suspect he will. He certainly will in Salt Lake City.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No, he won't win such people anywhere, obviously.

^^^, duh.

What reason would they have for voting for Obama, BRTD?

Because he's not a Mormon. In Utah I imagine at least a majority of white evangelicals are ex-Mormons too.

No, he won't win such people anywhere, obviously.

As I noted here, he probably did in some cities at least. I'd be surprised if he didn't in Minneapolis, or McCain won basically any demographic in San Francisco.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BK's link is spot-on.  This is a ridiculous suggestion.  Maybe if the question were white Protestants

Consider how skewed that could be by the south though. Do you think Obama won white evangelicals in Seattle? (I believe he did, like in Minneapolis. I mean if you have a serious problem with gays, then you probably aren't going to live in Seattle or Minneapolis for one.) That makes at least Salt Lake City pretty realistic.

Are you an evangelical now, BRTD?

I go to and was baptized in an evangelical church, (that is no doubt voting heavily for Obama), yes.

Am I an evangelical? I suppose that depends on the standard used. I mostly certainly am not by the Barna group standard. I might not be by the Pew standard either, which has white evangelicals quite a bit more conservative than the CNN exit poll standard.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Barna Group's: http://www.barna.org/culture-articles/111-survey-explores-who-qualifies-as-an-evangelical

I'm not sure about Pew, but if it's based simply on self-identification like the exit polls are, it must have some type of different screening method, because the numbers are quite a bit more conservative.

According to the 2008 exit polls, Obama won 24% of white evangelicals nationwide. That sounds low (and is), but if you look at individual states you'll see it's quite skewed by the south, in Minnesota for example he got 35% of white evangelicals (hence my belief he actually won it in the Twin Cities proper, we're certainly 15 points more liberal than the state and then there's the skewing in Michele Bachmann's district and southern suburbs where the number is no doubt quite below 35%.) Sadly I don't think the sample size for Utah is big enough, but it's not a ridiculous premise in SLC at least.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BK's link is spot-on.  This is a ridiculous suggestion.  Maybe if the question were white Protestants

Consider how skewed that could be by the south though. Do you think Obama won white evangelicals in Seattle? (I believe he did, like in Minneapolis. I mean if you have a serious problem with gays, then you probably aren't going to live in Seattle or Minneapolis for one.) That makes at least Salt Lake City pretty realistic.

Are you an evangelical now, BRTD?

I go to and was baptized in an evangelical church, (that is no doubt voting heavily for Obama), yes.

Am I an evangelical? I suppose that depends on the standard used. I mostly certainly am not by the Barna group standard. I might not be by the Pew standard either, which has white evangelicals quite a bit more conservative than the CNN exit poll standard.

Are you Lutheran by chance? I am and I know that we have a huge population in Minnesota.

Yeah, I was baptized the first time (as a baby) and raised Lutheran.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No, I don't think that he probably did win evangelicals in Seattle.

If Obama got 29% of white evangelicals statewide, why is a majority in Seattle so far-fetched?

I really doubt that SLC and Park City have a progressive enough evangelical population to make up for the Protestant population in other counties.  I don't have anything to back this up really, but liberal evangelicals are just a small population.

Since the Census won't ask religion questions we really don't have any way of knowing, but I doubt that there are too many white evangelicals in rural Utah or BYU-land. But here's the big question: How many of them in Utah are ex-Mormons?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If Obama got 29% of white evangelicals statewide, why is a majority in Seattle so far-fetched?

I don't think it's far-fetched, but I know Mars Hill Church is a big evangelical power in Seattle.  I guess I'd like a better sense of how many independent Protestant types identify as evangelicals before I hazarded a guess.  But I'm not sure what the point of the debate is -- we both just have vague intuition and non-representative anecdotal evidence.

Since the Census won't ask religion questions we really don't have any way of knowing, but I doubt that there are too many white evangelicals in rural Utah or BYU-land. But here's the big question: How many of them in Utah are ex-Mormons?

I'm not sure; the "Other Christian" population (Utah's biggest non-Mormon population, who don't identify as "Protestant") is nebulous to me.  Are these generi-Christian Park City types, lapsed Mormons who still identify with the Christian faith, progressive Christians of some type, evangelicals, or what?  When we're talking a 10% population (Protestant + "Other Christian") there don't have to be many.  Is the Utah fundie population really that microscopic?  Shrug.

Then again, I guess we've seen exit polls that say the non-Mormon population is heavily Democratic.  I'm not sure what to think, honestly.  The data we have are fairly terrible.

Well yeah, it's kind of tricky without a clear definition of "evangelical" I suppose. The "Other Christians" in Utah are a mixture of all the types you mentioned. How many are properly defined as "evangelical" becomes pretty tricky.

I thought you didn't believe in a significant difference between mainline and evangelical, and that the only differences were their positions on gays and abortion.

No actually I believe there definitely IS a difference. Just not best to based on those issues, which essentially creates kind of a No True Scotsman. For example is this an evangelical church? It's hard to see in what way it wouldn't fall more into that category than mainline...until you consider it supposedly has a reputation in Austin as a bit of a "gay church". Or for another example what are the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ? ARDA qualifies them as evangelical, but they are an ELCA schism, and are basically ELCA except they don't like gays. See the point?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

To me an "Evangelical" is just some fancy word for a devout Protestant. I'm probably right.

That definitely doesn't work amongst olds. More accurate amongst youngs, though Nathan is a notable counter-example.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Most Protestant olds here are mainline, even if they are socially conservative. They are often more conservative than their churches, but stay anyway because olds are kind of stubborn. The ELCA officially endorses a no vote on the marriage amendment, but I think it's obvious how Lutherans who can collect Social Security in rural Minnesota will be voting.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The exit polls didn't cover white evangelicals in Vermont, but I haven't found any state where Obama's numbers amongst white evangelicals is higher than 35% as it is here.