Emails, Stephen Ansolabehere, professor of Government, Harvard University, March 23, 2015

From: Stephen Ansolabehere

Sent: Monday, March 23, 2015 4:08 PM

To: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)

Subject: Re: Urgent inquiry for a Texas fact check of Sen. Ted Cruz

It's a hard question to answer without more specifics about what election he's referring to and what study he is referencing.  It's not clear if he is referring to presidential general elections or midterms.  Since midterm turnout is only about 35 percent nationwide (across all demographic groups), it may very well be true.

I run a large survey called the Cooperative Congressional Election Study.   Of the 18,559 Born Again Christians in that sample, 65% (12,149) voted in 2012.

The other sources would be David Campbell's or John Green's surveys or the American National Election Study or the Pew Center on Religion.  I searched briefly and found no reports of studies of turnout of this group.

Steve

On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 5:11 PM, Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin) <wgselby@statesman.com> wrote:

In your 2012 sample, how many respondents in general said they voted? Should I subtract points for typical over-reporting?

4:18 p.m.

The sample is of adult citizens.  Mike McDonald reports 58.6% turnout of the eligible adult population.

The voting rate in our sample is 65.7%.  The Born Again Christians vote at almost exactly the same rate as everyone else in the sample.  So, extrapolating from the sample, you'd expect a 58-59% voting rate of Born Again Christians in 2012.