American evangelicals remain more Republican than Democratic but are not locked tightly in the embrace of either party, according to a new survey released on Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Both Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama and his Republican rival John McCain are competing hard for the votes of this "battleground faith" in the November election. One in four US adults are evangelical.
The "US Religious Landscape Survey" found that 50 percent of U.S. evangelical Protestants were likely to be Republican or Republican-leaning compared to 34 per cent who linked themselves to the Democratic Party.
The survey draws primarily on nationwide polling of more than 35,000 US adults.
These were conducted in 2007 and so do not provide the latest snapshot of party affiliation. The newest poll also used a more detailed definition of 'evangelical' - including non-whites for instance - than the usual which focuses exclusively on white born-again Protestants, making comparisons with previous polls difficult.
But the sheer size of the sample makes it an important and revealing indicator of trends and many of its findings dovetail with other data showing a gradual drop in the Republican affiliation of evangelicals.
For example, other Pew surveys in 2007 found 57 per cent of white evangelical Protestants were in or leaning Republican compared to 32 per cent who tilted Democratic.
In 2004, 62 percent of white evangelical Protestants said they leaned Republican and almost 80 percent of those who voted that year cast their ballots for re-election of President George W Bush.
MOVING AWAY
"There appears to have been a shift away from the Republican Party even among evangelicals. This trend appears to be concentrated among younger evangelicals," said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
"But relatively few of the evangelicals who have moved away from the Republican Party have become Democratic, most have become independents," he said.
