Obama yet to win over evangelicals

|PIC1|The evangelical community is the only faith segment that Barack Obama has not won the majority support of, a new survey found.

Out of 19 faith communities polled by The Barna Group, all but evangelicals favour Democratic presidential hopeful Obama over Republican John McCain, reveals The Barna Group survey released on Monday.

Among evangelicals (carefully defined by Barna using a nine-question qualification process) who are likely to vote in November, 61 per cent supported McCain compared to 17 per cent for Obama.

But Obama is significantly more popular among other faith communities, including nominal Christians (44 per cent vs 28 per cent for McCain); people aligned with faiths other than Christianity (56 per cent vs 24 per cent); atheists and agnostics (55 per cent vs 17 per cent); Catholics (39 per cent vs 29 per cent); and Protestants (43 per cent vs 32 per cent).

Perhaps most notable is that even non-evangelical born-again Christians favour Obama over McCain. If their support is maintained until November, it will be the first time in more than two decades that the born-again vote has swung towards the Democratic candidate.

Born-again Christians are defined as people who say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their saviour.

Evangelicals, on the other hand, meet the born-again criteria plus seven other conditions.

Barna surveys ask respondents to answer a series of questions in order to determine whether they qualify for the born-again or evangelical category. Most other surveys, however, only ask respondents for self-description, which can lead to inaccurate results.

The nationwide survey also found a decline in support for Obama in several faith segments over the past two months. Obama's lead among non-evangelical born-again Christians is down nine points, Protestant support fell 13 points, and favourability among Catholics declined 11 points.

"While some Christian voters seem to be questioning their early support for Obama, the McCain candidacy does not seem to be gaining momentum among evangelicals," according to the Barna report. "Since June, the current level of support Senator McCain has among evangelical voters has declined significantly (dropping from 78 per cent to 61 per cent)."

George Barna, who directed the study, said while there is still "decided preference" for Obama among the Christian community, the more conservative part of the Christian population is "slowly coming to grips with what an Obama presidency might be like".

"As the finer points of a wide range of issues are clarified by each nominee, the initial excitement about Senator Obama has lost some luster to an increasing number of people whose vote is influenced by their spiritual perspectives," Barna said. "If Senator McCain converts such apprehensions into votes, this will be a closer race than many have anticipated."

The report is based upon telephone interviews conducted by The Barna Group with a random sample of 1,003 adults selected from across the United States in August 2008.