Although opinions vary within religions, surveys and statistical analysis show that those affiliated with a denomination or group often cast similar votes. Sources for affiliation percentages given here are the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, and the Pew Hispanic Center.
Percentages include respondents who said they were members of the referenced party as well as those who said they leaned toward that party. References to white voters are non-Hispanic whites. Adherence numbers are for 2010 from the Association of Religious Data Archives.
White evangelical Protestants: Republican affiliation grows
218,156 adherents in the Columbus metropolitan area (includes all evangelical Protestants)
Nationwide in 2012, 71 percent consider themselves Republicans (versus 65 percent in 2008), and 22 percent consider themselves Democrats (versus 28 percent in 2008).
They make up 34 percent of Republican voters and 9 percent of Democratic voters.
Issues: The group supports religious freedom and opposes abortion, same-sex marriage and the federal health-care mandate that requires employers (including some with religious affiliations) to cover contraception. (Some conservatives consider some forms of contraception to be abortion-inducing drugs.)
"I don't think abortion on demand would continue to be the law of the land if the 38 to 40 percent of people who identify as evangelical Christians voted on this issue instead of voting their pocketbooks or voting their loyalty to the party of their family heritage or the party of their geographic heritage," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, in a recent interview with SBC Life, the denomination's news journal.
Catholics
216,175 adherents in the Columbus metropolitan area
White Catholics: from Democratic to Republican
Nationwide in 2012, half are Republicans (versus 41 percent in 2008) and 41 percent are Democrats (versus 49 percent in 2008).
They make up 18 percent of Republican voters and 13 percent of Democratic voters.
Hispanic Catholics:
still Democratic
Nationwide in 2012, 63 percent are Democrats (versus 69 percent in 2010) and 28 percent side with the GOP (versus 19 percent in 2010).
They make up 5 percent of Democratic voters and 3 percent of Republican voters.
Issues: In an election-year letter addressed to Ohio Catholics, Archbishop Dennis Schnurr of Cincinnati, who heads the Catholic Conference of Ohio, refers to ending abortion, supporting the lives and dignity of the sick and vulnerable, safeguarding religious liberty, protecting the social institution of marriage, addressing unemployment and poverty, updating the immigration system, and promoting peace in foreign countries, especially Israel.
Many Catholics have been energized by a U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops religious-liberty campaign prompted by a federal health-care mandate that requires employer-provided insurance plans (including some religious-based companies) to pay for birth control.
White mainline Protestants:
pull toward GOP side
175,159 adherents in the Columbus metropolitan area
