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Nevertheless, some evangelicals might swing back to the Democrats. John Green of the University of Akron, who follows evangelicals' political activities, said about 40 percent of self-identified evangelicals are less committed to church attendance and the evangelical subculture. "Swing evangelicals" are bothered by the rhetorical style of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. They are prolife, but not decisively so. They are mostly white, live in suburbs in the South, Midwest, and Northwest, attend megachurches, and send their children to public schools.

Green said swing evangelicals helped elect Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. By 2000, however, 55 percent of swing evangelicals voted for Bush.

"Democrats have trouble with people of faith," Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), told CT. Pryor counts his voters among swing evangelicals. He prays and reads the Bible with his children daily. "It is important to me that people know I am a man of Christian faith," he said.

Pryor cites his campaign in 2002, amid sweeping Republican victories across the country, as a way for Democrats to regain evangelical voters. When a politician thinks about moral issues, Pryor says, "Silence is not golden."

In preparing for his campaign, Pryor invited a political consultant, Karl Struble, to identify his strengths and weaknesses as a candidate. Struble told him, "Mark, I never want you to give a speech in Arkansas without quoting the Bible, okay?"

Pryor knew his faith would be attractive to his fellow Arkansans, he said, because "67 percent of them are out to church every Sunday."

Longtime political activist Amy Sherman, the daughter of evangelical Baptists who supported President John F. Kennedy, has launched a drive to reinvigorate faith among Democrats. "To become America's majority party again," she told an audience of state and local politicians, "the Democrats will have to get religion."

Sherman and like-minded Democrats are crafting a blueprint for reconnecting their party to swing evangelicals. The blueprint emphasizes Democrats' support for environmental stewardship, AIDS treatment, faith-based social service initiatives, and equal legal protection for evangelicals. It also argues that President Bush has failed to live up to his evangelical language, and blasts his association with Religious Right "jihadists."

Democrats interviewed by CT mentioned their sympathy for the recent "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign by the Evangelical Environmental Network. Some candidates, such as Lieberman, are known for their stands against pornography and violence. Democrats also plan to follow up a Mark Penn poll from last summer that showed potential support from evangelicals who want guns out of criminals' hands.

These Democrats hope their efforts will at least decrease evangelical support for Bush in this election year. Karl Rove, Bush's chief campaign adviser, told a Washington audience last spring that at least 4 million fewer evangelicals voted in 2000 than in previous years.

But even faith-minded Democrats seem to have trouble understanding evangelicals. Their discussions often conflate statistics on "religiously committed" people with those on evangelicals. Sherman says liberal Episcopal bishop John Chane's advocacy for social justice is seen as an example of appealing to swing evangelicals.

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February 2004, Vol. 48, No. 2