DES MOINES, Iowa — People who attend church regularly are twice as likely to vote Republican than those who don't, according to a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
Knight Ridder news service reported the survey found 63 percent of voters who frequently attend religious services tilt Republican while those who never attend church lean similarly toward Democrats, 62 percent.
Voters weren't split by church attendance until recently, according to the report. The gap emerged in the 1990s and became clear in the 2000 election, when voters who attended religious services more than once a week voted for George Bush by a 2-1 ratio. Those who never went to services voted for Democrat Al Gore by the same margin.
The relatively new fault line in American life is a major reason the country is politically polarized, and the division over religion and politics is likely to continue in 2004, the news service reported.
"We now have the widest gap we have ever had between Republicans and Democrats," said Andy Kohut, survey director.
"It's the most powerful predictor of party ID and partisan voting intention," said Thomas Mann, a political scholar at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "And in a society that values religion as much as (this one), … that's significant."
The Pew poll of 2,528 people was taken July 14-Aug. 5 and had an error margin of 2 percent.
