From Pews to Polls: How Religiosity Shapes Political Alignment in the U.S.
Academic Level at Time of Presentation
Senior
Major
Political Science/Pre-law
Minor
Business Administration
List all Project Mentors & Advisor(s)
Dr. Brittany Wood
Presentation Format
Oral Presentation
Abstract/Description
This study examines the relationship between religiosity, the intensity of religious commitment and practice in day-to-day life, and the political identity among U.S. Christians. This study synthesizes multiple theoretical schools: historical alignment, social orientation, secularization, and political primacy. This study is run to address the question: To what extent does higher religiousity predict stronger identification with the Republican Party rather than the Democratic Party? Understanding this link is important to researchers and politicians, as religion remains a central factor in political polarization, voting behavior, and policy preferences. The analysis utilizes the 2024 American National Election Studies (ANES), restricted to self-identified Christians. Religiousity is operationalized as a standardized composite index of service attendance, religious guidance in daily life, and importance of religion; political identification is binary (1 = Republican/lean Republican, 0 = Democrat/lean Democrat), excluding independents, with controls for age, sex, race, education, income, and urban/rural residence. Binary logistic regression is expected to show that a one-standard-deviation increase in religiosity raises the odds of Republican identification. These findings would confirm religiousity as a durable predictor of partisanship and have implications for campain strategists.
Fall Scholars Week 2025
Political Science and Sociology Department Panel
From Pews to Polls: How Religiosity Shapes Political Alignment in the U.S.
This study examines the relationship between religiosity, the intensity of religious commitment and practice in day-to-day life, and the political identity among U.S. Christians. This study synthesizes multiple theoretical schools: historical alignment, social orientation, secularization, and political primacy. This study is run to address the question: To what extent does higher religiousity predict stronger identification with the Republican Party rather than the Democratic Party? Understanding this link is important to researchers and politicians, as religion remains a central factor in political polarization, voting behavior, and policy preferences. The analysis utilizes the 2024 American National Election Studies (ANES), restricted to self-identified Christians. Religiousity is operationalized as a standardized composite index of service attendance, religious guidance in daily life, and importance of religion; political identification is binary (1 = Republican/lean Republican, 0 = Democrat/lean Democrat), excluding independents, with controls for age, sex, race, education, income, and urban/rural residence. Binary logistic regression is expected to show that a one-standard-deviation increase in religiosity raises the odds of Republican identification. These findings would confirm religiousity as a durable predictor of partisanship and have implications for campain strategists.