Churches are giving that result because conservatives are supporting the churches - both the minister salaries/housing and the church buildings. That's a place for people to congregate and discuss their views: in many small towns there is a church every 10 blocks.
Supposedly we are becoming less religious as a culture, but where else are we supposed to gather and express our views. Larger cities have coffee houses - and some people meet and talk there if they are really social. PTAs are powerful once people become parents. Social clubs tend to drop off once people become engaged with work. Senior centers are gathering force as the nation ages.
Part of the problem with the GOP choking off funds for infrastructure is that we haven't bothered to build strong institutions. When we let our labor laws go to pot, we don't protect a space for common people to meet and discuss their political ideas. Instead exploitative employers rush in to fill the void and grab those hours for their labor needs. People respond to instant messages, tweets, and email - political messages grow in a viral way - but those messages are always unidirectional. There is never the sense of people meeting together in a room, personally, to argue the matter out. Even forums such as DU take time to participate in.
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