Poll: Romney leads big among married voters, Obama leads big among singles

Demographics alone do not explain the marriage-voting relationship. A special multivariate statistical analysis found that marriage remains an important predictor of support for Romney vs. Obama even after controlling for age, race, income, gender, education, religiosity, region, and whether a voter has minor children. These findings thus demonstrate that being married has some influence on voting patterns that cannot be attributed solely to common demographics and characteristics among married individuals.

As an illustration, Romney possesses an overwhelming advantage among the “highly religious,” (57%), while his support is weaker with the “moderately religious” (45%) and the “not religious” (31%). However, Romney performs comparatively better against Obama among those who are married within each of the three religiosity categories. At the same time, Obama does better among the nonmarried within each religiosity category. Even among Americans who are highly religious, those who are not married support Obama over Romney by a six-percentage-point margin. Among the highly religious who are married, Romney beats Obama by an overwhelming 36-point margin.