The Rise Of The Non-Christian Coalition
by Chris Bowers
The very interesting comments in the previous post on generational demographics planted an idea in my brain: how long will it be before the pro-Democratic non-Christian coalition is larger than the pro-Republican Christian coalition? In my estimation, one or two cycles at the most.
Demographics :: Tue Apr 12th, 2005 at 12:28:45 PM EDT
Five weeks before the election, I wrote the following:
With Muslim voters now overwhelming opposing Bush (a sharp contrast from 2000), with "Secular Warriors" also swinging heavily against Bush, and with Jewish voters overwhelming opposed to Bush, two equally sized religious blocks have formed in this country. On the one hand, representing just under 20% of the voting public, are white, evangelical and born again Protestants that support Bush roughly three to one. On the other hand, there is a diverse group of the religious and the irreligious, connected only by the common thread that they do not consider themselves Christian. This group also makes up just under 20% of the voting population, but opposes Bush roughly three to one.
What happened was slightly different. White Evangelical / Born-Again Protestants ended up being 23% of the electorate, while the non-Christian percentage of the electorate was slightly smaller at 20%. Further, Bush won the larger group 78-21, while Kerry won the smaller group by a 71-27 count. Overall, this meant that instead of these two bases canceling each other out, Bush won by just over five million votes within this 43% of the electorate (53 million voters), a margin Kerry was unable to make up in the remaining 57% of the electorate.
That the two coalitions did not end up canceling each other out is why Bush won the election. As I have argued in the past, along with droves of other pundits, Bush won in 2004 with huge base turnout, especially among evangelicals concerned with "moral values." However, considering demographic trends that will soon cause the white born again / evangelical vote to be swamped by the non-Christian coalition, the success of such a strategy is fleeting and possibly specific to 2004.
In the 2000 election, 18% of the electorate self-identified as some form of non-Christian (Jewish 4%, other 5%, none 9%). Gore won this 18% of the electorate by a margin of 61-30, with Nader mopping up a surprisingly large 7% of this vote. In 2004, Kerry won this group 71-27, with the group as a whole now forming 20% of the electorate (Jewish 3%, Other 7%, none 10%). Overall, in 2000 this group represented 22.9% of Gore's total vote, while in 2004 it made up 29.4% of Kerry's total vote. In terms of total votes, 11.7 million voted for Gore in 2000, while 17.3 million voted for Kerry in 2004. For Bush, 5.7 million voted for him in 2000, while 6.6 million voted for him in 2004. Kerry won 86% of the new voters in this category. The total Democratic margin among this group of voters increased by a whopping 4.7 million in 2004, in an election where the overall Democratic margin dropped by 3.6 million. Overall, roughly 70% of new Democratic voters fit into this group.
Non-Christians, as a group, are growing much faster than Latinos. Hell, this demographic is growing at a rate that would put most third-world countries to shame. According to the American Religious Identification Survey study by CUNY, in 1990, 24.215 million adult Americans were estimated to be in the "non-Christian" group. In 2001, 48.467 million adult Americans were estimated to be in this group. Not only did this group double in size over that eleven-year period, it actually represented 75% of the total increase in the adult population over those eleven years. And I repeat: Kerry won 86% of the new voters in this demographic in 2004.
Further, this group isn't going away. In the comments of the previous post, discussing the already linked CUNY survey, fwiffo wrote this summary of the situation (emphasis mine):
One significant finding is switching of individuals between religious groups. The most common sorts of switches are between various Christian groups (e.g. people who change from one protestant denomination to another, or most commonly, from a specific denomination to non-denominational and/or evangelical), or people dropping out of religion altogether. People switching into religion from being non-religious (e.g. atheist) is relatively rare. The survey might even over-count that group, since it probably includes quite a few "born-agains". I've met a fair share that claim that they used to be "godless" but "found Jesus" in their couch one day. In reality, most of them identified with one Christian group or another prior to becoming hyper-religious, but they just became much more vigorous about it.
So, we are becoming less religious as a whole, and the secular folks, as a demographic, is growing and doesn't easily lose members. A subset of people who remain religious are becoming somewhat more fanatical and outspoken. The Republicans have allied themselves with the larger, shrinking, and increasingly noisy ultra-religious group, and the secular have aligned themselves with the Democrats (not the other way around - Democrats haven't aligned themselves with anything or anyone in particular).
I think is exactly right. After the election, even I told Democrats repeatedly that we needed to do a better job of expressing their faith, because the values voters had delivered the election to Bush. However, a closer look at demographic figures in the country might reveal the folly, even the rank insanity, of such a strategy. For two consecutive elections, Democrats have won a huge majority of the rapidly rising non-Christian vote, and we are supposed to try and appeal to Christian fundamentalists who, as a demographic, are comparatively static, even shrinking? This strategy gets even worse when you consider this comment from thirdestate:
Speaking as a political scientist....
Generally speaking, the "you get more conservative as you get older" myth really is a myth. People's ideological/partisan identification don't change much after the age of 30. If someone votes for the same party three times in a row, they're hooked for life. It takes some earth-shattering to change after that.
People don't get more conservative as they get older, but they do get more rigid. What happens is that ideology acts as an informational screen - people shield out stuff that is inconsistent with their predispositions (which is why FOX News works). So as we get older, our attitudes get reinforced.
So liberals should NOT get happy if people who are under 30 are on the left, because the young are very volatile. But after thirty, it's smooth sailing.
Considering their fondness for Nader, I have little doubt that non-Christians went huge for Perot both in 1992 and 1996. Thus, considering Democratic success among non-Christians in 2000 and 2004, we are on the brink of winning this group for life. Republicans are not going to try for them in 2008, they simply do not have the option considering the current power of the evangelicals within the Republican party. However, if Democrats were to choose a candidate based on his or her perceived electability, related to his or her ability to talk to evangelicals, it would probably be the dumbest, most myopic, bandwagon jumping, self-eviscerating maneuver we have made as a party in decades. We are on the brink of winning the long-term support of easily the fastest growing demographic in America, and the best strategic advice we can think of is to alienate them? No pun intended, but Mother of God is that a bad idea.
We need to embrace the non-Christian coalition with open arms, and even try to press our advantage among them. At the latest, they will have easily surpassed the "values voters" in size and voting power by 2012, the time of the next great Congressional realignment. If we blow this one, we won't even sniff the reigns of power for another generation. If we win this segment of the electorate, the future will be ours.
