Big Evangelical Turnout for Midterms

Big Evangelical Turnout for Midterms November 9, 2014

Last night’s results show that pollster Robert Jones was far, far too optimistic about the impact of declining numbers of white evangelicals on Senate races in the South. In an October 17 Atlantic piece, Jones identified five races–Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Carolina–in which those demographic changes could help either keep Senate seats in Democratic hands, or tip Republican-held seats to the Democrats.

2014, Jones wrote, “may be the year that the underlying demographic trends finally exert enough force to make themselves felt.”

I was skeptical, pointing out that turnout and intensity matter more than these numbers. (Religion News Service’s Tobin Grant disputed Jones’ claim that white evangelicals are declining at all.)

Last night, the Republican Senate candidates won in Arkansas (Tom Cotton defeating Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor), Georgia (Republican David Perdue defeating Democrat Michelle Nunn), Kentucky (incumbent Mitch McConnell handily defeating Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes), and North Carolina (Republican challenger Thom Tillis defeating incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan). In Louisiana, Democratic incumbent Mary Landreiu is headed for a run-off.

Preliminary exit polling shows that if Jones is right about overall declining numbers of white Southern evangelicals, they nonetheless turned out in much higher percentages than in Jones’ data, exerting an opposite force from the one Jones predicted.

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