Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Has A New Way Of Measuring Religion Uncovered A Religious Left?, Matthew Frei

Library Research Grants

Research typically reveals that religious voters tend to be conservative and Republican. However, a new survey question used on the American National Elections Study (ANES) was recently developed to separate individualistic Christians from communitarian Christians by asking whether they try more to help others or to avoid sin. Scholars have used the question to claim that religious communitarians lean to the political left. This analysis shows that the new ANES question is correlated with partisan identification, but should not be interpreted as evidence of a religious left.