You know the received liberal wisdom — picked up from the Sunday talk shows — about how “backward Red State Protestants will never vote for a Mormon anyhow”?
Meanwhile, anti-Mormon attitudes among non-religious voters rose from 21 percent in 2007 to 41 percent in 2012. Among voters who called themselves “liberals,” this aversion to Mormons rose from 28 percent to 43 percent during that same period.
Political and religious liberals, according to this study, are now 10 percent more likely than evangelical Protestants to harshly prejudge Mormon candidates.
Protestants still pretty goofy too, though:
The key for many Protestants is that, after decades of trying to Christianize American history, it has become very hard for them not to think of the president as a kind of “religious mascot” instead of as a politician…
The Pew report found only 48% of adults identified themselves as Protestants, down from 53% five years ago.
