THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 10, 1994 TAG: 9411100664
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
The Chesapeake-based Christian Coalition, which distributed 33 million voters guides in churches before the election, on Wednesday staked its claim to a piece of the Republican victory.
Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, said its survey showed that white evangelical born-again voters turned out at record levels. The group's survey, based on interviews with 1,000 voters immediately after the polls closed, shows that religious conservatives accounted for 33 percent of the people who cast a vote, up from 18 percent four years ago.
That constituency heavily favors the GOP. According to the survey, it went 69 percent Republican at the House level, 68 percent Republican at the Senate level, and 71 percent Republican in gubernatorial races.
The election ``establishes the conservative religious vote as one of the linchpins of a conservative governing majority,'' Reed said Wednesday, in an interview with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson on the ``700 Club.''
But it is hard to determine the influence of the Christian Coalition's voter guides and phone banks in sending conservative Christians to the polls, political scientists say.
``It may be that if Ralph Reed sat on his hands in Chesapeake, conservative Protestants would still have voted Republican due to the distaste for Clinton, his stand on gays in the military and other things,'' said Mark Rozell, a professor at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg who is writing a book on religious conservatives in Virginia.
The exception to the Republican landslide was Oliver North, a prominent born-again candidate who lost his Senate bid. Reed said North lost not because of his conservatism but because voters questioned his conduct during the Iran-Contra scandal.
An exit poll of 1,500 Virginia voters Tuesday showed that 55 percent of those who described themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians voted for North. Charles S. Robb got 32 percent of that group; J. Marshall Coleman, 14 percent.
Elsewhere across the country, candidates allied with the Christian conservative agenda scored big. Among the 59 U.S. House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates cited as ``pro-life/pro-family'' by Reed:
PENNSYLVANIA: Rick Santorum, a supporter of vouchers to allow children to attend private school and an opponent of gun control, defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Harris Wofford. Three years ago, Wofford's victory on a platform of health care reform was hailed as a harbinger of success for Clinton.
SOUTH CAROLINA: David Beasley, who has fought to ban all abortions except to save the life of the mother, defeated Democratic Lt. Gov. Nick Theodore for governor. He is the state's third Republican governor since Reconstruction.
MINNESOTA: Rod Grams, who supports school vouchers and opposes gay rights, defeated Democrat Ann Wynia for Senate. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Reed
by CNB