Mitt Romney won the New Hampshire primary. His margin of victory may have been smaller than predicted, but there was one surprisingly strong result: Romney tied Rick Santorum for the lead among evangelical voters (around 26 percent each). Romney did twice as well among born-again Christians in the Granite State than he did last week in the Hawkeye State.
The primary voters in New Hampshire are, on average, more moderate than caucus goers in Iowa. New Hampshire has fewer evangelicals and more Catholics and non-religious voters than Iowa. But evangelicals are evangelicals, and Romney seems to have made significant ground among this key part of the Republican coalition.
These results could be an anomaly, but it may also signal a new dynamic to the race. The conventional wisdom was that the social conservative voters were splitting their vote. As candidates like Michele Bachmann dropped out, they would shift their support to another social conservative candidate. In the first test of this, the only difference between the evangelical vote in New Hampshire and Iowa was the vote for Romney. With Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann no-shows in New Hampshire, Romney seems to have picked up the difference in the evangelical vote.
The same pattern holds for other key parts of the GOP base. Romney won the plurality of votes among those who said they were “conservative” in politics. Among those who described themselves as “very conservative” on social issues like gay marriage and abortion, Romney and Santorum tied with 27 percent of the vote.
Ron Paul continued to get his 20 percent of the evangelical vote, as he did in Iowa. Huntsman did worse among evangelicals than those who are not (10 vs. 20 percent). Santorum did far better among born-again Christians. The former Pennsylvania senator did nearly four times as well among evangelicals than other voters (26 vs. 7 percent).
Because evangelicals made up only one-quarter of the primary voters in New Hampshire, their influence is smaller than in Iowa or in this Saturday’s primary in South Carolina. Still, if Romney had done as poorly with evangelicals as he did in Iowa, his margin of victory could have slipped into the single digits. This weekend, a strong showing among evangelicals could mean the difference between a win or a loss in South Carolina.
For historian Kate Bowler, grief and suffering are more than just a topic of interest. She’s intimately acquainted with pain herself as someone who was diagnosed with stage IV cancer, faced a small chance of survival, and lives with chronic pain. As she puts it, “I spent a long time almost dying.”
On this episode of The Russell Moore Show, Bowler shares words of wisdom honed from her research and her personal life. She and Moore talk about her new book, Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day!: Daily Meditations for the Ups, Downs & In-Betweens, and discuss the vulnerability of being human. They explore the anxious tenor of the modern era in a historical context and talk about the ways people discuss (or avoid discussing) hard things. They consider what it looks like to keep the faith in times of trial and how powerful acts of kindness and tenderness can be in seasons of suffering. Their conversation covers theology, Christian history, and the specific ways that the prosperity gospel has shaped evangelicalism.
Tune in for an episode that is as rich and resourceful as it is enjoyable and encouraging.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Kate Bowler
Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day!: Daily Meditations for the Ups, Downs & In-Betweensby Kate Bowler
No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need To Hear) by Kate Bowler
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler
Dorothy Day
Reinhold Niebuhr
Beth Moore
Timothy Keller
Richard Hayes
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
Reynolds Price
“How Do People Actually Change?” by Simeon Zahl
“Tears” by Frederick Buechner
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