Who's Right About the Right? Comparing Competing Explanations of the Link Between White Evangelicals and Conservative Politics in the United States

Using pooled data from the 2000-2004 National Election Studies, we compare the explanatory power of five competing explanations for the links between membership in theologically conservative Protestant denominations and right-of-center political attitudes. These explanations focus, respectively, on: (1) religiosity, (2) moral absolutism, (3) family ideology, (4) class culture, and (5) cultural geography. Moral absolutism is the strongest explanation for conservative political attitudes, both for whites affiliated with theologically conservative Protestant denominations, and for members of other religious traditions.