Nearly all major subgroups show decreased Republican Party affiliation (cept one)

[moobu2]

People that attend church weekly are the only group that the republicans haven’t lost ground on.

:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:




(edited to add link)

GOP Losses Span Nearly All Demographic Groups

(Double edited to add a paragraph from the article)

PRINCETON, NJ -- The decline in Republican Party affiliation among Americans in recent years is well documented, but a Gallup analysis now shows that this movement away from the GOP has occurred among nearly every major demographic subgroup. Since the first year of George W. Bush's presidency in 2001, the Republican Party has maintained its support only among frequent churchgoers, with conservatives and senior citizens showing minimal decline.

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Nice! Soon it will be an insignificant party of the far rightwing zealout batshit insane

[Lasher]

2. Looks like they've lost the most among 18-29 year olds.

That bodes very well for the future.

[RagAss]

3. Tells you all you need to know about religion in this country.

May it die a thousand deaths !

[struggle4progress]

4. It could be true that people who really attend church consistently are somewhat more

resistant to changing their political views than the population at large

Anyway, I am pretty sure that the Republicans haven't lost much ground in my church recently -- though this is a somewhat misleading statement, since as far as I can tell the folk at my church were more or less unanimous in their support for Obama from the beginning

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Well, considering that my church went about 90% for Obama

judging from the bumperstickers in the parking lot...

[ZombieHorde]

6. Hail Satan, hail Satan, hail Satan!

[skepticscott]

7. Although the article doesn't really say

my impression from other sources is that the percentage of the population that attends church weekly is also in decline, so that even if the Republican's share of that group is holding steady, it may still represent a net loss for them.

[struggle4progress]

8. Did You Really Go To Church This Week? (1998)

by C. Kirk Hadaway and P.L. Marler

... Numerous studies show that people do not accurately report their behavior to pollsters. Americans misreport how often they vote, how much they give to charity and how frequently they use illegal drugs. Their misreporting is in the expected direction: people report higher than actual figures for voting and charitable giving, lower for illegal drug use. People are not entirely accurate in their self-reports about other areas as well. Males exaggerate their number of sexual partners; university workers are not very honest about reporting how many photocopies they make. Actual attendance at museums, symphonies and operas does not match survey results.

We should not expect religious behavior to he immune to such misreporting. Several years ago we teamed up with sociologist Mark Chaves to test the 40 percent figure for church attendance. Our initial study, based on attendance counts in Protestant churches in one Ohio county and Catholic churches in 18 dioceses, indicated a much lower rate of religious participation than the polls report. Instead of 40 percent of Protestants attending church, we found 20 percent. Instead of 50 percent of Catholics attending church, we found 28 percent. In other words, actual church attendance was about half the rate indicated by national public opinion polls ...

... Follow-up questions about what people meant by "attending church" revealed that a few were counting things other than attending worship—such as going to weddings, funerals, committee meetings, Sunday school and choir practice. One individual in Ashtabula County even said his attendance consisted of mowing the church lawn on the previous Saturday ...

Most overreporting occurs among those who consider themselves to be regular church attenders. In another study, conducted among members of a large evangelical church in the South, we were able to determine exactly who misreported their attendance. Most of those who said they attended and who, in fact, did not were people who report that they normally attend church "every week." People who attend less often—particularly those who say they normally attend once a month or less—accurately reported that they did not attend church in the previous week ...

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=237

[struggle4progress]

9. "... Compared to conventional interviewer-administered questions about attendance at religious

services, self-administered items and time-use items should minimize social desirability pressures. In fact, they each reduce claims of weekly attendance by about one-third ..."
Counting churchgoers
By Andrew Gelman on July 11, 2006 8:15 PM
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2006/07/counting_church.html

[rrneck]

11. I wonder

how many of the people polled considered viewing a church service on television or the internet church attendance?

I recall reading somewhere that in pre literate times the "word of God" referred not to a sacred text but to the spoken word. That sounds to me like how the real value of the religious experience is found in the shared experience of faith. That seems to make sense to me. You know, actual people talking to actual people. When churches become little more than media conglomerates they seem to dilute the meaning of a shared experience and turn it into a mass produced product.

I haven't set foot in a church for many years. And I don't plan to for many more. But I have several Jewish friends, and I have been to a few Temple services. I can't tell the difference between them and any run of the mill Christian church. It's just another guy behind a pulpit telling a whole bunch of other people what to think. It seems to me that the Jewish faith is best practiced around a dinner table. Passover Seders and all the rest seem to have the sort of connectedness and rejuvenative quality combined with a constant reexamination of what the practice of faith means that I would expect from a healthy and productive shared experience among people.

But they can keep the Gefilte fish. Oy vey! :)

edit to spell Gefilte

[rrneck]

10. I'm clearly not a statistician

but it seems to me that they are polling for the wrong kinds of people. It might be more accurate to poll for credulous boneheads who are being suckered by crooked politicians and predatory churches.

[hvn_nbr_2]

12. Poll has a librul bias. They didn't measure the Pukes' target demographics

Where in that chart are these demographics: functional illiterates, boneheads, the bat-shit crazy, morans.