Are evangelicals swing voters?
May 31, 2006
by Patrick Hynes

At some point in the last eighteen months, a meme was born in the mainstream press that has, so far as I can tell, no basis in fact. According to this meme, politically active evangelical Christians are an "up for grabs" swing group of voters, many of whom are ripe for the Democrats’ picking.

This bizarre idea was expressed most recently by Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post in May.

Writes Marcus:

Democrats these days are a party on a mission that might sound impossible: to persuade evangelical Christian voters to consider converting -- to the Democratic Party.Just as Republicans have worked, and to some extent succeeded, at peeling off some African American voters from the Democratic Party, evangelical voters are too big a part of the electorate (about a quarter) for one party simply to write off.Democrats have a shot at
luring some of them…

The facts do not back up this assertion. the rest