Religious conservatives, the Republican Party and evolving party coalitions in the United States

The growing importance of religious conservatives within the Republican Party is one of the most interesting aspects of evolving party coalitions in the USA. However, their identification has proved to be difficult because of different operational definitions of religious conservatives. In this paper, an alternative operational definition is posited, identifying conservative Republicans for whom religion is an important part of their lives. The paper proceeds by using this definition to estimate the number of religious conservatives in the mass electorate, and their political distinctiveness compared to other Republicans. While the definition used in this paper is a broad one, it is demonstrated that in terms of voting behavior and issue preferences, a 'religious' conservative Republican is qualitatively distinct from a 'secular' conservative Republican.