Obama is behind with evangelicals

Democrats like to say that this year, they will finally dig into the Republicans’ traditional advantage among evangelical voters. After all, social conservatives are skeptical of John McCain, and Barack Obama seems comfortable talking about his faith (at least when his former pastor isn’t involved).

But a new analysis from the nonpartisan Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that Obama is doing just as badly among white evangelical voters as his party’s 2004 nominee was a few months before that election.

The report, based on a national Pew poll last month, found that 25% of white evangelicals support Obama. In summer 2004, 26% backed John F. Kerry’s candidacy. (Kerry wound up winning just 21% of that group, according to exit polls.)

McCain has the support of 61% of white evangelicals, the Pew analysis found; most of the remaining 14% of those polled said they did not know whom they would support.

McCain’s big margin was not necessarily good news for the presumptive GOP candidate: President Bush at this point four years ago had 69% (and, according to exit polls, took 78% in the end).

The bottom line is that neither Obama nor McCain is where he’d hope to be among this important voting bloc. And both are courting it heavily -- Obama with a recent speech endorsing government funding for faith-based social service agencies, and McCain through support for a California measure to ban same-sex marriage.

-- Peter Wallsten