Fewer See Dems As Religion-Friendly

The Democrats' efforts to improve their image with religious voters after their 2004 presidential election defeat backfire.

The Associated Press reports a new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds that fewer people now see Democrats as friendly to religion now than felt that way a year ago:

That number has dropped from 40 percent in August 2004 who thought the Democrats were friendly to religion to 29 percent now.

"The change is seen across all groups," said Scott Keeter, director of survey research for the Pew Research Center, which conducted the poll for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

After President Bush's reelection, the Democratic National Committee initiated numerous efforts to strengthen its standing with religious voters:

The DNC hired someone to coordinate religious outreach, encouraged state parties to work more closely with the religious community, and had Chairman Howard Dean meet with clergy and others in the religious community during his travels around the country.

According to the poll's findings, the Democrats have experienced a sharp erosion in the number of Americans who believe the party is friendly toward religion. Only about three-in-ten (29%) see the Democrats as friendly toward religion, down from 40% last August.

This reaction might be the result of the talk amongst the Democrat's leaders about how the must improve the perception that they are not religion friendly. It will take the Democrats a long time to change the perception. The perception won't change just because Democratic leaders say they are going to be religion friendly. They we have to demonstrate that they are in fact more religion friendly by the positions and actions they take.

The poll was conducted July 7-17 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percent. The poll's findings are available here.

Comments

[Achillea]

Rather depends what religion you're talking about.