Americans Are More Likely to Vote for Adulterers Than Atheists

By Madeleine Davies  |  May 20, 2014 | 10:45pm
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A new poll by the Pew Research Center has all the info on what Americans will be looking for in a candidate for the 2016 presidential elections. The good news: The vast majority of people polled said they would have no problem voting for a woman. The bad: Everyone is still refusing to vote for atheists.

When surveyed, only 9% of the 1,501 adult respondents said that they would be less likely to vote for a female candidate. 19% said they’d be more likely and 71% said that gender wouldn’t matter. Similarly encouraging — 66% of those polled were equally unbothered by the idea of voting for a gay candidate.

Experience in Washington has become much less important in recent years. 30% of people view less experience in the D.C. branches of government as a positive, but 52% would also be far less likely to vote for someone who had no experience holding office.

61% of people who participated in the survey say that a candidate’s extramarital affair would have no effect on their vote. The numbers here are actually pretty encouraging, seeing how politics and people’s private sex lives should have very little to do with each other (unless, of course, you’re a politician who is pushing legislation that hinders other consenting adults’ right to get freaky, in which case your sex life is fair game). Besides, it’s very French of us.

And now, the frown-inducing statistics: 53% of Americans are less likely to vote for a candidate if the candidate identifies as atheist. 5% say they’d be more likely (holla!) and 41% say it wouldn’t matter. Who knows — maybe we’ll start to see a shift on this in the future.

Image via Shutterstock.

 
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