"White evangelical protestants are some of the most reliably conservative and Republican voters in the electorate," said Greg Smith, associate director of research at Pew. "African-American protestants, on the other hand, are some of the most strongly and consistently Democratic voters in the electorate." "If you didn't look at them separately," he added, "if you lumped them all together, you would miss a big part of the story about the connections and the interrelations of religion, race, and politics in the U.S."