Yes, Religion Matters in Election

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation of Tim Michels’ donations to various anti-abortion and anti-gay groups provoked outrage from Michels. In a fit of hyperbole, Michels said “I believe people should just, just be ready to get out on the streets with pitchforks and torches with how low the liberal media has become.” Michels’ attack suggests reporting on his donations is out of line and has no relevance to his political views or what sort of governor he would make.

In fact, the August 2022 Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin respondents illustrates a strong connection between one’s religion and support for banning abortion. One question in the poll asked whether the respondent favored or opposed the recent Supreme Court ruling reversing the Roe v. Wade decision that had protected a woman’s right to an abortion. The percentage who said they support overruling Roe is shown in yellow; the percentage opposing the decision is shown in green.

As the graph below shows, respondents overall opposed the
court’s decision by a ratio of about two to one. The poll also reported results for five subgroups. These subgroups were based on the respondents’ self-reported religion: born again Protestant, mainline protestant, Roman Catholic, those saying they had no religion, and other religions.

Born again Protestants were the only subgroup in which the majority supported the court’s decision. Even in that case, support was not unanimous. More than a third (36%) of them opposed the court’s decision to reverse Roe.

Strikingly, despite near universal opposition to abortion from the Catholic Church’s hierarchy, a majority of Catholics were opposed to the court’s decision. In fact, the ratio of support to opposition was the same among Catholics as among all the respondents.

The strongest opposition to the court’s decision came from a growing group—those who said that they had no religion. Other than that group and the born-again Protestants, the remaining three groups split similarly to the total group, with a ratio of about two to one opposing the court decision.

One month earlier, the Marquette poll put the same question to a national sample of voters. Before turning to that, however, it is useful to look at what the two polls reveal about the differences in religious makeup of Wisconsin voters and that of the US as a whole.

The next chart compares the five religious groupings as reflected in the two samples. The mix for July’s national poll is shown in blue. That for the August Wisconsin poll is shown in yellow. Moving left to right in the chart, the percentage of born-again Protestants was slightly higher nationally than in Wisconsin, likely a reflection of the dominance of born-again Protestant churches in the South.

By contrast mainline Protestants made up a much higher portion of the Wisconsin sample than they did nationally. The trend of membership loss among mainline Protestant churches seems to have progressed much further nationally than in Wisconsin.

(A recent report from Pew estimates that nationally the number of people saying they have no religious affiliation has been increasing and has reached 29%, while the number calling themselves Christian has decreased to 63%. Gallup estimates that church membership fell below 50% for the first time.)

Roman Catholics make up a larger portion of the Wisconsin sample than the national one. Both the group with no religion and those with “other religion” other than Catholic or Protestant are smaller in Wisconsin than in the national sample.

The next graph shows how members of the national sample responded to the question of whether they favored or opposed the court decision overturning abortion rights. This poll took place in July of 2022.

Compared to the Wisconsin poll, Born-again Protestants in the national sample were even more supportive of the court decision overturning Roe. By contrast, mainline Protestants were more strongly opposed to ending Roe than were those in the Wisconsin sample. And while a majority of Catholics in the national sample opposed ending Roe, that majority was smaller than in the Wisconsin sample.

The Journal Sentinel article on Michels’ donations noted that in addition to giving to organizations opposing abortion, he was also supportive of organizations opposed to gay and transgender people. For example, the article notes that Michels donated $50,000 to Spring Creek Church in Pewaukee which his website identifies as his church. The JS article reported that the pastor of one church receiving a donation from Michels preached “that God believed transgender individuals were an ‘abomination’ and a ‘rebellion to their creator.’”

Yet it does not appear that born-again Protestants feel the same impetus to turn their beliefs about gender issues into law as with abortion. Compared to abortion Marquette has done little polling of opinions related to gender issues. However, one question on its
July national poll asked about the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision to include gay and transgender workers under the protection of a law against workplace discrimination.

The next graph shows the breakdown of the responses by the five religious categories. For simplicity I combined the percentage saying they were strongly or somewhat supportive and those who said they were strongly or somewhat opposed. Despite the negative comments from the preachers, most born again Protestants seem content with protecting gay and transgender workers against job discrimination.

Contrary to Michels’ outrage, patterns of charitable donations and their religious views can help us understand candidates’ political views and policies they may support. Opposition to abortion and support for laws banning abortion are closely correlated with religious beliefs.

Supporters of abortion bans, like Michels, like to claim that the product of conception is a “person.” They have a perfect right to believe that. However, saying that is a statement of belief, not of fact. In insisting that the state act on that belief, they are attempting to impose that belief on the majority in either Wisconsin or the nation, a majority that does not share their religious beliefs.