PREDICTING ACCEPTANCE OF MORMONS AS CHRISTIANS BY RELIGION AND PARTY IDENTITY.

During the 2012 election, Americans were evenly divided over the question of whether Mormonism--the religion of one of the candidates--could legitimately be called a Christian religion. This has potentially serious consequences in an electorate with a large Christian majority, and in a country where religious and national identities are closely associated. This paper uses a framework from social identity theory and data from the 2012 ANES Time Series to explain this divide in opinion, which went far beyond traditional evangelical hostility to Mormons and crossed party lines. Because of their theological heterodoxy and cultural difference, Mormons are less likely to be regarded as Christians by other Christians who identify very strongly with their faith. Prototype theory suggests these strong identifiers are more concerned with maintaining strict requirements for group membership, while weaker identifiers are more likely to accept Mormons as Christians. In the context of an election campaign with a Mormon candidate, however, party identity also matters. Christians who identify strongly with the Republican Party are, all things being equal, more likely than weaker party identifiers or Democrats to regard Mormons as Christians, because they want "their" candidate to be part of the religious in-group. All else being equal, voters who did not regard Mormons as Christians were 18 percent less likely to vote for Romney. However, the electoral damage to Romney was mitigated by Republican Party identification, which led many Christian voters to identify Mormons as Christians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]