Religious Stereotyping and Voter Support for Evangelical Candidates

• DOI: 10.1177/1065912908320668
• Date: 01 June 2009
• Published date: 01 June 2009
• Author: Monika L. McDermott
• Subject Matter: Articles

340

Political Research Quarterly

Volume 62 Number 2

June 2009 340-354

© 2009 University of Utah

10.1177/1065912908320668

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Religious Stereotyping and Voter Support

for Evangelical Candidates

Monika L. McDermott

Fordham University

While much important research exists on the topic of religion and politics, very little exists on candidate religious affil-

iation and its potential effect on voters’ behavior. This article addresses the issue of candidate religion from the point

of view that it acts as an information cue for voters in elections through trait and belief stereotypes. Using a case study

of hypothetical evangelical Christian candidates and an original experimental data set, this analysis demonstrates that

voters stereotype evangelicals as more conservative than other candidates, as well as more competent and trustworthy,

all else equal. These stereotypes subsequently play a significant role in voters’ choices of whom to support.

Keywords: voting; stereotypes; information shortcuts; evangelicals; candidate religion

Religion in America has become increasingly

entwined with politics during the past few

decades. For example, voters are turning to their reli-

gious affiliations more and more to help them form

political opinions and make voting decisions (Layman

1997; Miller and Hoffmann 1999). The major political

parties’ coalitions have become increasingly religiously

homogenous, and Democratic and Republican activists

have thus become increasingly polarized over cultural

issues (Layman 1999). Perhaps as a result of these

trends, researchers have also found strong religious

influences on the voting behavior of legislators (most

recently, Yamane and Oldmixon 2006). While this

and other research tell us quite a bit about how an

individual’s—be it a voter, activist, or legislator—

religious affiliation affects his or her own actions, the

literature has largely ignored one vital ingredient in the

relationship between religion and politics—electoral

candidates’ religious affiliations and how they may

affect voters’ evaluations and electoral decisions.

Given the increasing importance of religion in

politics, understanding whether and how candidate

religious affiliation matters seems critical to our under-

standing of voting behavior and elections. If voters do

bring their own religion into the political realm and

the choices they make, it is reasonable to expect that

they would also pay attention to candidates’ affilia-

tions and be influenced by them.

Public opinion surveys have demonstrated that can-

didates’ religious affiliations can affect voters’ willing-

ness to support them. For example, a Pew Foundation

survey1in 2003 found that 8 percent of the American

public said they would not be willing to vote for a

“generally well-qualified” nominee from their political

party if the candidate were Catholic. Likewise, 11 per-

cent expressed opposition to voting for a Jewish candi-

date, 37 percent for a Muslim nominee, 17 percent for

an evangelical Christian, and half would not vote for

an atheist. While demonstrating that religious affilia-

tion has some effect, however, these numbers do little

to elucidate how candidate religion affects voters and

their choices.

How might candidates’ religious affiliations affect

voters’ choices? Existing research into other candidate

characteristics offers a well-documented method—

heuristic processing. In heuristic processing, individu-

als use general and accessible rules of thumb to make

judgments about new and potentially unfamiliar situ-

ations or people (Fiske and Taylor 1991). In other

words, individuals simplify their world by taking

information shortcuts (heuristics) rather than collect-

ing complete information. These shortcuts are fre-

quently in the form of stereotypes—generalizations

that individuals hold about groups, and subsequently,

group members (Fiske and Taylor 1991). When it

comes to politics, the heuristic process is the same;

social and political stereotypes frequently provide the

information for individuals’cognitive shortcuts (Ottati

and Wyer 1990; Rahn 1993).

This article examines candidate religion as such an

information shortcut. It uses original data from an

Monika L. McDermott, Professor of Political Science, Fordham

University; e-mail: mmcdermott@fordham.edu.