Attitudes toward Mormons and Voter Behavior in the 2012 Presidential Election

Abstract

Prior to the 2012 presidential election, some commentators speculated that Mitt Romney's status as a devout and active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would undermine his presidential aspirations. Using the 2012 American National Election Survey, this study examines the relationship between attitudes toward Mormons and voter behavior in the United States in that election year. It finds that attitudes toward Mormons had a statistically-significant effect on turnoutthough these effects differed according to party identification. It additionally finds that these attitudes influenced vote choice. In both cases, the substantive effects were small, indicating that anti-Mormon feelings did play a role in the 2012 presidential election, but they did not determine the final outcome.

Mitt Romney, Mormonism, and the Media: Popular Depictions of a Religious Minority

“…And, while he did not win the presidency, his loss did not seem to be a result of his religious belief” (98). George Hawley agrees that Romney's loss to Obama during the federal election was not primarily due to his Mormonism, although he acknowledges that his faith did play some role. Many others describe Romney's Mormonism as a “nonissue” in 2012 (Guth; Powell; Powell and Hickson; Smietana; Turner) because of his reluctance to openly discuss it and the relative absence of religious debate during the election cycle (Guth and Bradberry).…”