On Super Tuesday, Mike Huckabee won four Southern states with a strong evangelical vote: Alabama (51% of the white born again Protestant vote), Georgia (45%), and Tennessee (43%), plus his home state of Arkansas. Evangelical votes also allowed him to closely contest Missouri (44%) and Oklahoma (39%). These figures resemble Huckabee’s showing in Iowa, among evangelicals and overall. However, Huckabee did not broaden his support by very much, even in the states he won. This pattern hurt him in other parts of the country, where evangelicals were less numerous and less supportive of his candidacy.
A similar pattern appeared in Barack Obama’s vote as well: he won Alabama and Georgia on basis of a strong black vote, especially from black Protestants. Although Obama won the black vote everywhere, it was not large enough to carry him to victory– even in other southern states like Tennessee and Oklahoma. Indeed, Obama had trouble expanding his support among other religious groups, for the most part losing white Catholics, white Protestants, and Hispanics to Hillary Clinton. Obama continued his special to appeal among younger voters, and perhaps as a consequence won the unaffiliated and other religious minorities.
The bedrock of the Clinton vote continued to be white Catholics: 71% in New Jersey, 68% in California, and 67% in Massachusetts. It was Catholic votes that allowed her to overcome Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama in the Bay State. Minority Catholics swelled Clinton’s totals everywhere.
On the Republican side, Romney’s Mormon supporters were crucial to his success in the Mountain west. And John McCain continued to be the choice of the less observant Republican minority across the country.