Young Evangelicals Disagree With Their Political Party on Range of Issues, Study Suggests

A particular set of young evangelical Christians are mostly Republican, but both Republicans and Democrats in the sample feel that their preferred political party does not represent them well on certain issues, according to a pilot study sponsored by Sojourners, a liberal evangelical advocacy organization.

The sample was 54 percent Republican and 26 percent Democratic. Twenty percent had no preference among the two major political parties.

When asked how close they were to their political party on a range of issues, abortion had the greatest disparity. Seventy-five percent of Republicans, the highest of any issue, said they were close to their party, while only 10 percent of Democrats, the lowest of any issue, said they were close to their party on the issue.

On the issue of international poverty, on the other hand, a higher proportion of Democrats (41 percent) said they were close to their party on the issue than Republicans (23 percent) said they were close to their party on the issue. Domestic poverty had similar results: 41 percent of Democrats agree with their party and 29 percent of Republicans agree with their party