Religion and Voting in U.S. National Elections
Session Title
Additional Projects
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Department
Political Science
Abstract
Identification with Christianity is often associated with Republican voting behavior in United States elections. This study aims to empirically test this relationship by using PEW survey data, which includes information on religious identity and voting behavior in United States’ elections for Congress and the Presidency in the past few elections. Among the religious identities included in the survey, namely, (1) Protestant/other Christian, (2) Catholic, (3) Jewish, (4) Other Religion(s), (5) and Religiously unaffiliated, I will create a binary indicator "Christianity" that includes those identifying as Christian, Catholic, and Protestant/other Christian as a main independent variable. Among the voting intention and vote choice categories, which include (1) voting for Republican, (2) for Democrat, and (3) neither I create an ordinal variable that measures the extent to which the respondents are leaning to supporting republican as a dependent variable. A preliminary analysis shows a positive first-order relationship between Christian identity and Republican voting behavior. By using multiple regression analysis, I attempt to test whether this relationship is causal by controlling for potential confounders such as party affiliation, gender, age, race, socio-economic status, and regions among others.
Start Date
15-4-2022 12:00 PM
Religion and Voting in U.S. National Elections
Identification with Christianity is often associated with Republican voting behavior in United States elections. This study aims to empirically test this relationship by using PEW survey data, which includes information on religious identity and voting behavior in United States’ elections for Congress and the Presidency in the past few elections. Among the religious identities included in the survey, namely, (1) Protestant/other Christian, (2) Catholic, (3) Jewish, (4) Other Religion(s), (5) and Religiously unaffiliated, I will create a binary indicator "Christianity" that includes those identifying as Christian, Catholic, and Protestant/other Christian as a main independent variable. Among the voting intention and vote choice categories, which include (1) voting for Republican, (2) for Democrat, and (3) neither I create an ordinal variable that measures the extent to which the respondents are leaning to supporting republican as a dependent variable. A preliminary analysis shows a positive first-order relationship between Christian identity and Republican voting behavior. By using multiple regression analysis, I attempt to test whether this relationship is causal by controlling for potential confounders such as party affiliation, gender, age, race, socio-economic status, and regions among others.
