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Divided We Stand

Divided We Stand
New book about the 2020 election.

Monday, December 24, 2012

God's Money

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that religious money favored Democrats in 2012:
Center for Responsive Politics data shows that in 2012, clergy and religious organizations gave 62 percent of their campaign contributions to Democrats, the most of any year since 1990 when OpenSecrets started tracking the data and nearly 10 percent above the average of the past two decades 
Contributions came exclusively from individuals, who favored Barack Obamawith $700,000 and gave his GOP opponent, Mitt Romney, just $230,000.

In 2008, contributions were also skewed toward Democrats, with individuals from that group contributing $1 million to Democrat Barack Obama; $200,000 to Hillary Clinton, also a Democrat; $180,000 to Republican Mike Huckabee; and $177,000 to that year's GOP nominee, John McCain. 
This trend could be a problem for Republicans, because the numbers might be expected to go the other way. A Gallup poll released in December found that most Americans self-identify as religious. A plurality of them, 40 percent, identified as very religious and 29 percent as moderately religious. Gallup also found a decline in the percentage of Americans who identify with a specific religious sect. 
The industry’s lobbying in the first three quarters of 2012 appears to be down at $1.7 million. In 2011, the industry spent $3 million lobbying.