Evangelicals by Region

The latest Quinnipiac poll on the presidential race in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin suggests that there may be a regional aspect to the evangelical vote worth keeping an eye on. In Colorado, evangelicals are backing McCain over Obama by a whopping 78 percent to 16 percent. That's substantially better than the 74-24 margin by which Bush beat Kerry in 2004. But in the Upper Midwest, McCain's margin is much lower: 60-27 in Michigan, 62-30 in Minnesota, and just 54-34 in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, the 2004 exit polls failed to ask the evangelical question in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but in Michigan Bush's margin was 76-24--which means that Obama is running well ahead of Kerry there at this point. The hypothesis, then, is that Obama the Born Again Midwesterner has a greater appeal to Midwestern evangelicals than he does to evangelicals in other parts of the country--or at least than to the Dobsonian evangelicals of the Mountain West. Let's see whether future polls bear this out.