A Political Portrait of Mormons: More Republican/Conservative Than Evangelicals

In the last year or two, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has dramatically expanded its role in national conservative/Republican politics. This is evidenced by Mitt Romney's presidential run (likely to be reprised in 2012), the LDS Church's leading role in passing California's Proposition 8, and talk of Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as presidential timber.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has released a new portrait of American Mormons, who account for just 1.7 percent of the population but are a fast-growing tradition. It turns out that Mormons are even more Republican than white evangelicals. Check out this graph from Pew:

In fact, only members of historically black churches, 77 percent of whom are Democrats, are more politically homogeneous than Mormons. More from Pew:

Six-in-ten Mormons identify as conservative, about three-in-ten (27%) say they consider themselves moderate and only one-in-ten identify as liberal. This is in stark contrast to the general population, in which roughly a third identify as conservative (37%), a third as moderate (36%) and 20% as liberal.

The summer 2007 Landscape Survey finds that an even larger share of Mormons identify as Republicans or lean toward the Republican Party than identify as conservative. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Mormons say they identify with or lean toward the Republican party, 15 percentage points higher than among members of evangelical churches (50%) and 30 points higher than among the general population (35%). Just one-fifth of Mormons (22%) say they are Democrats and the remainder say they do not favor either party. Members of historically black churches are the only religious group in which there is more consensus in partisanship than Mormons, with 77% identifying as Democrats.

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