Race Religion and Politics

[dmallind]

Don't think I remember this being discussed but apologies if so.

There are striking differences between the correlation of religiosity and political bent between races.

The below are numbers that are/lean Rep and Dem respectively, First line is very religious. Second is nonreligious. Poll also includes moderately but I'm looking at the edges here.

WHITE
62 28
33 51


BLACK
9 80
10 77


HISPANIC
25 45
19 56


ASIAN
34 48
20 56


I wonder why black Americans become marginally MORE Republican - within MOE but still - as they become nonreligious. Libertarian true "believers" perhaps? More educated means wealthier means more likely to put taxes etc first? Why does no other racial group essentially stay the same politically at any level of religiosity? To be sure black Americans have suffered morer from right wing pushers of inequality than Hispanics or Asians, but they are also more religious - and it's not like the latter groups have no stake in inequality.

Why also are whites by far the most likely to shift politically and religiously together? Is it the relative lack of bearing the brunt of Republican racism? A conflation of religion, race and the blind jingoism and exceptionalism beloved of the right about what it means to be a REAL American?

Taken as a group Asian Americans are the most socio-economically successful of ethnic minorities included, but at the nonreligious end of things are politically identical to the much poorer on aggregate Hispanics, and not hugely different on the very religious side. Why less correlation to religiosity here than for whites? Why so close to each other? Cultural norm cliches differ from each other as much as from stereotypical whites.

EDIT - Forgot link...

http://www.gallup.com/poll/148361/Religion-Party-Strongly-Linked-Among-Whites-Not-Blacks.aspx

[cbayer]

1. Here is a better image of the results

[Jim__]

2. Thanks - that helps a lot. - n/t

[FarCenter]

6. Black Americans are a special case

The black churches historically led in the fight for civil rights. I'd expect a close association between black religious fervor and community solidarity.

Asian Americans may also be a special case. One of the more religious groups would be Korean Americans. "Very religious" Asian Americans may reflect the traditional anti-communist leanings of specific ethnic groups, such as Christians from Korea and Taiwan versus other East and South Asian ethnic groups who may not share those leanings. Filipinos might be expected to be similar to Hispanics, given their history.

Hispanics, Whites (and Jews) would reflect the GOP = devout Catholics + evangelical Protestants + neoCon Jews equation.

This is driven by a shared interest in social issues such as anti-abortion and anti-gay politics between the devout Catholics and evangelical Protestants, and by a shared interest in Israeli causes by evangelical Protestants and neoCon Jews (although for rather different eschatological reasons). On the other hand there would not seem to be a natural affinity between devout Catholics and neoCon Jews, so that part of the linkage may be less stable.

[dmallind]

8. Good thoughts, but to me the intersting question is WHICH group is the outlier

Blacks for political loyalty/solidarity or whites for religious influence in politics.

Since the other ethnic groups are in between and close to each other it's hard to say. Could be both of course. I wonder why so much more influence for whites though.

[FarCenter]

10. Blacks are the outlier, because of their very small association with the Republican party

Whites, being the majority group, are more or less evenly divided between the two parties. This is what you expect in a two party system.

But without breaking the Whites down by denominational affiliation it is hard to say more.

Same for the Asians, since they are a collection of rather different ethnic groups.

I'd be interested in statistics for West Indian Blacks, which is an ethnic group with above average income per capita.

[westerebus]

13. Thanks.

[Jim__]

3. Personally, I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on those numbers.

At the very least, I'd want to see how each category breaks down within gender and geographical region.

[dmallind]

4. You think a 30pt swing and no swing may be driven by regional differences?

[Jim__]

5. There are 2 great divisions in the US - race and geographic region.

The racial division is clearly reflected in the columns of black American party affiliation.

The division by religiosity for white Americans is out of line with any of the other 3 groups. My guess is that a large part of that disproportionate spread is due to geographic regional divisions - religiosity at least partly aligns with geographic region.

[dmallind]

7. Corrected for region and covers all states and DC

Emphasis mine


Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking survey January-May 2011, with a random sample of 145,618 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

For results based on the sample of 115,577 non-Hispanic whites, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 10,704 Hispanics, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 10,174 non-Hispanic blacks, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 2,467 Asians, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents for gender within region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phones numbers are selected using random digit dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone-only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2010 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.

[Jim__]

9. But the results are not broken down by region - weighting for population by region doesn't correct.

Last edited Sat Feb 11, 2012, 09:43 AM - Edit history (2)

My concern is for a confounding between religiosity and region. Population weighting does not deal with that.

IOW, for white Americans there is a disparity in the difference between the % of Very Religious and the % of Nonreligious Republican of 29%. That's more than twice the disparity in this column of any of the other 3 groups. Does that disparity correlate with a regional disparity between Republicans and Democrats. We know that the Solid South that was solidly Democratic 50 years ago is now solidly Republican. Much of the south also belongs to the Bible Belt. Since the comparison in their table is between religion and political party, and region plays a role in both of these variables, there is, at the very least, the potential of an operational confound between religiosity and region; but we are not given any information about that.

[dmallind]

11. The TOTAL regional split is only that large in a handful of states

For it to have this affect all the very religious sample would have to come from UT and nonreligious from NY.

But we know that there is regional weighting and we know that in all regions together whites went 55-43 R-D in the last election.

Since very religious whites go 62-28 we know there is an enormous influence on politics coming from religiosity. Do you wish to address it or keep laughably pretending the 15% dropoff in Dem support from the very religious white demographic does not exist?

[Jim__]

12. Exactly what TOTAL regional split are you talking about?

Are you seriously trying to deny that there is a region called the Bible Belt and that it is largely republican and, by my guess, the region with the largest very religious group (both criteria being for white Americans)? What percentage of the very religious are from the Bible Belt? How does that very religious population split along party lines? What effect does that have on the totals that are displayed? Without that information, I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on the numbers given in this poll.