[h=3]By JANET HOOK[/h]EATON, Ohio—Conservative activists are making a big push to drive evangelical voters to the polls, sensing that a large pool of voters with conservative Christian leanings who sat out the 2008 election could provide a surge for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
The push has taken on particular importance as polls show the race to be deadlocked, suggesting that victory may hinge on which campaign is better at turning its more tentative supporters into voters.
President Barack Obama has been trying to build a majority by appealing to suburban women, Hispanics, young voters and other slices of the electorate. Many Republicans and their allies, by contrast, are looking to social conservatives as a potential surge force that could give Mr. Romney a majority in a number of battlegrounds, among them Ohio, Virginia and Iowa.
Conservative strategists believe as many as 300,000 evangelicals and "values voters" boosted former President George W. Bush to victory in Ohio in 2004, but then sat out in 2008, when Mr. Obama carried the state by about 260,000 votes.
Obama campaign officials say they are reaching out to the faith community and don't cede the white evangelical vote to Mr. Romney. "Evangelicals across Ohio will be a part of the president's winning coalition, because of his plan to move America forward," said Clo Ewing, an Obama spokeswoman.
Evangelical support for Mr. Romney remained an open question as the 2012 campaign began, due to his support early in his political career for abortion rights and, to a lesser extent, to his Mormon faith.
But after months of burnishing his conservative credentials on social issues and lambasting Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney seems to have made the sale among voters such as Peg Andrews, a retired teacher from Dayton, who attended a lunch of evangelical Christians being recruited to distribute voter guides at churches across rural Ohio.
"I'm fired up," said Ms. Andrews, who added that she didn't share some evangelicals' reservations about Mr. Romney's Mormon faith. "He is not going to be the pastor-in-chief."
A group called Citizens for Community Values Action has sent a brightly painted RV around Ohio to promote voter registration, recruit pastors and distribute voter guides to rural churches.
The Faith and Freedom Coalition, a national group led by conservative organizer Ralph Reed, has contact information for about 17.3 million conservative voters in 15 key states and is contacting those on its list in Ohio to urge them to take advantage of early voting in the state.
The Campaign for American Values PAC is running ads in Ohio that show Mr. Romney declaring, "I will not take God out of the public square."
White evangelicals and those who identified themselves as "born again" Christians accounted for 26% of the U.S. electorate in 2008 and 23% in 2004, according to exit polls.
Mr. Romney's support tops 80% nationwide among white evangelicals who are likely to vote, according to combined data from the last two Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls, in late September and early October. That is a higher share than the 74% who according to exit polls backed the 2008 GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain.
"There had been questions early in the race about whether a Mormon candidate for president could mobilize the white evangelical vote," said GOP pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey along with Democratic pollster Peter Hart. "Those questions have definitely been answered."
While Mr. Romney wins high support among evangelicals in national polls, there are signs that he hasn't yet won decisive backing among them in Ohio, which is one of the states most likely to decide the election. A Ohio survey released Monday by the Quinnipiac Poll showed Mr. Romney's support among white evangelicals at 67%—lower than Mr. McCain's margin in 2008.
"They really have some work to do," said John Green, an Akron University political scientist who studies religion and politics. "Part of the big question is whether soft support [for Mr. Romney] will harden into hard support and enthusiasm."
The Romney campaign has organized phone banks of social conservatives calling like-minded voters, said Scott Jennings, its Ohio state director. Hundreds of people around the state are expected to participate in one "social conservative call night'' on Tuesday.
Mr. Romney impressed some conservatives with his GOP convention speech, when he trumpeted his support for the traditional definition of marriage.
He met recently with an evangelical icon, Rev. Billy Graham, who has run full-page newspaper ads, including on Sunday in the Columbus Dispatch.
The ads don't mention Mr. Romney by name, but they leave little doubt about his preferences. "I strongly urge you to vote for candidates who support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman, protect the sanctity of life and defend our religious freedoms," it said.
The effort is working on voters such as Ms. Andrews, who didn't support Mr. Romney in Ohio's Republican primary, in part because of doubts about whether he was solidly antiabortion. But she has been reassured by his campaign promises.
J.C. Church, a pastor from Bucyrus, Ohio, who helped launch Citizens for Community Values' RV tour of the state, is urging evangelicals to consider that the Supreme Court could be transformed by the next president if one additional justice is willing to overturn the court's abortion-rights decision. "You could truly live to see the overturning of Roe v Wade," he said.
Mr. Romney has inspired enthusiasm among some voters who were lukewarm in 2008 about Mr. McCain, whose principal pitch to evangelicals came when he asked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate.
"I wasn't a big McCain person," said Inez Parish, a retiree from Chillicothe, Ohio, as she passed out Faith and Freedom Coalition literature at a fall festival in southern Ohio. "But I'm passionate about this race. I'm even passionate about Mitt Romney—his morals, his business ethics, his family."
The Obama campaign is gearing up a massive turnout operation of its own in Ohio, and there are indications it is doing a better job at delivering its supporters for early voting than Mr. Romney's team.
A late September Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist poll found that, among Ohio voters who had already cast ballots, Mr. Obama was leading by 63% to 37%.
Phil Burress, head of Citizens for Community Values Action, said the key metric on Election Day will be turnout in the state's rural counties, which tend to favor Republicans.
"If all the red counties show up, the blue counties and liberals will never win again," said Mr. Burress.
Write to Janet Hook at [email protected]
The push has taken on particular importance as polls show the race to be deadlocked, suggesting that victory may hinge on which campaign is better at turning its more tentative supporters into voters.
President Barack Obama has been trying to build a majority by appealing to suburban women, Hispanics, young voters and other slices of the electorate. Many Republicans and their allies, by contrast, are looking to social conservatives as a potential surge force that could give Mr. Romney a majority in a number of battlegrounds, among them Ohio, Virginia and Iowa.
Conservative strategists believe as many as 300,000 evangelicals and "values voters" boosted former President George W. Bush to victory in Ohio in 2004, but then sat out in 2008, when Mr. Obama carried the state by about 260,000 votes.
Obama campaign officials say they are reaching out to the faith community and don't cede the white evangelical vote to Mr. Romney. "Evangelicals across Ohio will be a part of the president's winning coalition, because of his plan to move America forward," said Clo Ewing, an Obama spokeswoman.
Evangelical support for Mr. Romney remained an open question as the 2012 campaign began, due to his support early in his political career for abortion rights and, to a lesser extent, to his Mormon faith.
But after months of burnishing his conservative credentials on social issues and lambasting Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney seems to have made the sale among voters such as Peg Andrews, a retired teacher from Dayton, who attended a lunch of evangelical Christians being recruited to distribute voter guides at churches across rural Ohio.
"I'm fired up," said Ms. Andrews, who added that she didn't share some evangelicals' reservations about Mr. Romney's Mormon faith. "He is not going to be the pastor-in-chief."
A group called Citizens for Community Values Action has sent a brightly painted RV around Ohio to promote voter registration, recruit pastors and distribute voter guides to rural churches.
The Faith and Freedom Coalition, a national group led by conservative organizer Ralph Reed, has contact information for about 17.3 million conservative voters in 15 key states and is contacting those on its list in Ohio to urge them to take advantage of early voting in the state.
The Campaign for American Values PAC is running ads in Ohio that show Mr. Romney declaring, "I will not take God out of the public square."
White evangelicals and those who identified themselves as "born again" Christians accounted for 26% of the U.S. electorate in 2008 and 23% in 2004, according to exit polls.
Mr. Romney's support tops 80% nationwide among white evangelicals who are likely to vote, according to combined data from the last two Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls, in late September and early October. That is a higher share than the 74% who according to exit polls backed the 2008 GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain.
"There had been questions early in the race about whether a Mormon candidate for president could mobilize the white evangelical vote," said GOP pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey along with Democratic pollster Peter Hart. "Those questions have definitely been answered."
While Mr. Romney wins high support among evangelicals in national polls, there are signs that he hasn't yet won decisive backing among them in Ohio, which is one of the states most likely to decide the election. A Ohio survey released Monday by the Quinnipiac Poll showed Mr. Romney's support among white evangelicals at 67%—lower than Mr. McCain's margin in 2008.
"They really have some work to do," said John Green, an Akron University political scientist who studies religion and politics. "Part of the big question is whether soft support [for Mr. Romney] will harden into hard support and enthusiasm."
The Romney campaign has organized phone banks of social conservatives calling like-minded voters, said Scott Jennings, its Ohio state director. Hundreds of people around the state are expected to participate in one "social conservative call night'' on Tuesday.
Mr. Romney impressed some conservatives with his GOP convention speech, when he trumpeted his support for the traditional definition of marriage.
He met recently with an evangelical icon, Rev. Billy Graham, who has run full-page newspaper ads, including on Sunday in the Columbus Dispatch.
The ads don't mention Mr. Romney by name, but they leave little doubt about his preferences. "I strongly urge you to vote for candidates who support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman, protect the sanctity of life and defend our religious freedoms," it said.
The effort is working on voters such as Ms. Andrews, who didn't support Mr. Romney in Ohio's Republican primary, in part because of doubts about whether he was solidly antiabortion. But she has been reassured by his campaign promises.
J.C. Church, a pastor from Bucyrus, Ohio, who helped launch Citizens for Community Values' RV tour of the state, is urging evangelicals to consider that the Supreme Court could be transformed by the next president if one additional justice is willing to overturn the court's abortion-rights decision. "You could truly live to see the overturning of Roe v Wade," he said.
Mr. Romney has inspired enthusiasm among some voters who were lukewarm in 2008 about Mr. McCain, whose principal pitch to evangelicals came when he asked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate.
"I wasn't a big McCain person," said Inez Parish, a retiree from Chillicothe, Ohio, as she passed out Faith and Freedom Coalition literature at a fall festival in southern Ohio. "But I'm passionate about this race. I'm even passionate about Mitt Romney—his morals, his business ethics, his family."
The Obama campaign is gearing up a massive turnout operation of its own in Ohio, and there are indications it is doing a better job at delivering its supporters for early voting than Mr. Romney's team.
A late September Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist poll found that, among Ohio voters who had already cast ballots, Mr. Obama was leading by 63% to 37%.
Phil Burress, head of Citizens for Community Values Action, said the key metric on Election Day will be turnout in the state's rural counties, which tend to favor Republicans.
"If all the red counties show up, the blue counties and liberals will never win again," said Mr. Burress.
Write to Janet Hook at [email protected]