Evangelical Latinos

Here's an interesting piece by Troy Gibson and Christopher Hare highlighted by the Monkey Cage on the effect of religiosity on ideology and partisan affiliation among Latinos.

One of the key conclusions is that Evangelical Latinos are roughly evenly split in terms of partisan affiliation while Catholic Latinos are Democratic by better than a 3:2 margin and secular Latinos are even more Democratic. The most surprising findings to me was that among Evangelical Latinos, 47% identify as Democrats and the authors look at Latino Catholics generationally and find that post-Vatican II Latinos are the most Democratic among Catholics.

These are very, very bad numbers for the Republican Party IF they hold in the long run (that's a big "if" of course). I would have guessed that Republicans had at least a nominal lead among Evangelical Latinos but they don't. Additionally, younger generations of Latinos are more Democratic. This is no different than the effect of age on the population as a whole (if anything the effect is muted among Latinos) but it is not a good sign for the future of the Republican Party nonetheless.

One question that is not addressed by the paper is the geographic spread of Evangelical Latinos. Where they are matters a lot at least in terms of presidential politics.