NOV. 3, 2004

ELECTIONS 2004
Born-again president: What Bush's re-election means for religion and politics

Resources

Articles

• Read a Sept. 16, 2004, Washington Post story, titled "Openly Religious, to a Point: Bush Leaves the Specifics of His Faith to Speculation."
• Read an Oct. 26, 2004, New York Times story, "Personal and Political, Bush's Faith Blurs Lines."
• Read an Oct. 17, 2004, New York Times Magazine article titled "Without a Doubt."
• Read an Oct. 18, 2004, op-ed by Paul Kengor, a professor of political science at Grove City College who is the author of God and George W. Bush: A Spiritual Life (Regan Books, 2004). It appeared in The New York Times.
• Read a spiritual biography of George Bush posted by Beliefnet.com.

Web sites

• See the National Election Pool's 2004 exit poll results, posted by Beliefnet.com including voting by faith tradition.
• See a comparison of 2000 and 2004 exit poll results posted by Beliefnet.com.
• See Beliefnet.com's national map that identifies the religious and political makeup of each state.
• The web site of PBS show Religion & Ethics Newsweekly has archives on stories about faith, politics and the election, as well as an April 2004 survey of evangelicals in America.
• For candidates' statements on faith and politics, see Beliefnet.com's columns on Bush and Kerry.
• For excerpts of the two parties' platforms' stands, go to the On The Issues web site, which has links to statements and positions by the parties and their leaders.
• The Bush-Cheney home page
• The Kerry-Edwards home page
• The Democratic National Committee's home page and the Republican National Committee's home page also have useful links and information.

Polls And Research

Polls are the raw fuel of political campaigns, and they are invaluable baselines for stories about religion and politics. Caveat emptor, however: A Nov. 14, 2002, Chicago Tribunestory discussed why polls are sometimes wrong (as many were in the 2002 elections) and the pitfalls of relying too heavily on them. Here are some of the major providers of polls, surveys and data:

NATIONAL POLLING ORGANIZATIONS
• Barna Research Group
• The Gallup Organization (subscription required)
• Zogby International

ACADEMIC AND NONPROFIT RESEARCH CENTERS
• Data on the Net from the University of California-San Diego
• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan
• National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago
• The Odum Institute for research in social science
• Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
• PollingReport.com
• Public Agenda
• The Roper Center at the University of Connecticut now has online the 1972-2002 cumulative data file for the National Opinion Research Center's General Social Surveys (GSS).

NEWS ORGANIZATIONS
• ABC News
• Fox News
• The New York Times / CBS News polls
• USA Today/CNN/Gallup polls
• The Washington Post

POLITICAL POLLS
• National Election Studies
• Center on Policy Attitudes

STATE POLLING INFORMATION
• Mason-Dixon Polling & Research
• National Network of State Polls
• State Politics and Policy from the American Political Science Association
• Alabama: The Alabama Poll from Southern Opinion Research
• Arizona: KAET Poll
• Arizona: The Arizona Survey at Northern Arizona University
• California: Public Policy Institute of California
• Connecticut: Connecticut Polls from the Quinnipiac College Polling Institute
• Maryland: Maryland/Baltimore Polls
• New Jersey: New Jersey Polls from the Quinnipiac College Polling Institute
• New Jersey: The Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University
• New York: New York State and City polls from Quinnipiac College Polling Institute
• Ohio: The Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati
• Pennsylvania: Keystone Poll at Millersville University
• Rhode Island: Public Opinion Report at Brown University

RELIGION AND POLITICS DATA
• "GOP the Religion-Friendly Party, But Stem Cell Issue May Help Democrats," an August 2004 poll by the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
• American Religious Landscapes and Political Attitudes, the Fourth National Survey of Religion and Politics, conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in spring 2004.
• Religion and Politics: Contention and Consensus, a 2003 survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
• Beliefnet.com compiled 2000 exit poll results and other information about religion and politics

RELIGIOUS IDENTIFICATION SURVEYS
• American Religious Identification Survey of 2001 by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York
• 2000 Religious Congregations & Membership Survey by Glenmary Research Center
• Adherents.com gathers current research from many sources.
• The 2003 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches
• The 2001 American Jewish Identity Survey
• Profile of the U.S. Muslim Population from the American Religious Identification Survey of 2001
• The 2001 Mosque in America: A National Portrait report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations

OTHER USEFUL RESEARCH TOOLS
• Mansfield University in Pennsylvania has a web page with dozens of links to Census and demographic information.

STANDARD-SETTING ASSOCIATIONS FOR POLLING
• The National Council on Public Polls sets standards for polls and advises media on how to use them.
• Council of American Survey Research Organizations
• American Association for Public Opinion Research