I was thinking a bit today about the idea of subgroup composition in the world of politics and religion.
For example, evangelicals could be the same share of the population today as they were in the early 1980s, but that doesn’t mean that the composition of the group hasn’t changed significantly during the previous four decades. In fact, it would be pretty shocking if the racial composition of evangelicals hadn’t shifted and the average educational attainment hadn’t climbed, given the overall macro-level movement in American society.
That got me thinking quite a bit about a specific group — those who never attend religious services.
In 2008, according to the Cooperative Election Study, about 20% of all respondents reported that they never attended religious services. By 2022, that share had risen to 34%. A fourteen point jump is a whole lot of folks, by the way. In fact, in real numbers that’s over 45 million Americans.
But the composition of never attenders has also changed as that group has grown so much larger. What I really wanted to do is help readers better conceptualize this group — especially when it comes to politics.
One of my hobby horses recently has been trying to convince people that they need to stop thinking about Republicans as incredibly religiously active and Democrats are the ones who have nothing to do with religion. The Republican coalition is looking less and less religious every year and this is going to have big impacts in the elections to come.
Let’s start broad — with the share of each party identification that never attended religious services between 2008 and 2022.
In 2008, Independents were the most likely to be never attenders — bet you wouldn’t have guessed that.
Twenty-eight percent of them checked the “never” box, which was four points higher than Democrats. There were very few Republicans who were never attenders back when Barack Obama faced off against John McCain for the White House — just 10%.
But, all those figures have risen significantly over the last 14 years.
In 2022, the share of Independents and Democrats who were never attenders have risen to 42% each. That was a jump of 18 percentage points for Democrats and 14 points for Independents.
Among Republicans, the share had also risen — 22%. More than double the rate of 2008.
But here’s where things get really interesting — I wanted to just look at the partisan composition of never attenders.
In 2008, 62% of never attenders were Democrats and 20% were Republicans. That’s a total gap of 42 points. In 2012, that gap was essentially the same.
But in 2016, it dropped to only 31 points (56% vs 25%). It stuck there for the 2020 election as well. Those percentages didn’t change at all.
Then, in 2022 the gap was just 29 points (53% vs 24%). 42 points in 2008. Then 29 points in 2022. The Democrats are losing their advantage with never attenders.
But, where are those Republican gains coming from? Older folks? Younger ones?
Let’s find out. This is just the sample who never attended religious services in 2008-2010 compared to 2020-2022 (I grouped these years together to give me a bigger sample size). I did this by birth year so we can more easily compare when the gap opens up.
The answer is clearly older folks, as in Baby Boomers.
Among people born around 1950 and never attended religious services, about 27% were Republicans in 2008-2010. A decade later that share had jumped to 34%. That gap is fairly large for people born between 1940 and 1955 — then it begins to narrow significantly.
Among people born in the 1970s and early 1980s, there’s really been no major partisan shift among never attenders. However, among those born in 1990 (they were just coming into adulthood in those early surveys), the gap opens back up. Just 12% were Republicans in 2008-2010 compared to 17% in the last few years.
But here’s where things get really odd. Partisanship is one thing, but vote choice is another measurement entirely. This is vote pattern of never attenders over the last four presidential elections.
Obama had a huge advantage with this group when he won the White House in 2008. He earned 72% of never attenders compared to only 26% for McCain. He managed to lose some ground in 2012 — losing four percentage points.
Hillary Clinton did a lot of worse. Her advantage among never attenders was just 27 points (60% vs 33%). In 2008, Obama’s margin was 46 points. This is one of the reasons she lost, I suspect. Donald Trump, it would appear, gained some points among the never attenders.
By 2020, Joe Biden seemed to reverse the trend. He basically got never attenders back to the Obama reelection level. He took 69% of the vote and Trump only managed 28%.
Part of this was the lack of a viable Third Party candidate, for certain. But that doesn’t tell all of the story because that was only 7% in 2016.
Let’s go even farther now. This is the ideology (liberal, moderate, conservative) and partisanship (Democrat, Independent, and Republican) of never attenders in the last four presidential election cycles.
CONTINUE READING: “The Political Puzzle of Never Attenders” by Ryan Burge via his Graphs about Religion Substack newletter.
FIRST IMAGE: Uncredited feature photo with this post — “WHO’S REALLY GOING TO CHURCH — AND WHO’S NOT” — at the Unlikely Places weblog.