But does the Republican advantage in family stability hold up in a multivariate context? Yes, it does. As the table above indicates, even after controlling for region, education, race, ethnicity, religiosity, and age, data from the General Social Survey still indicate that Republican parents are more likely to be in a first marriage.

Our research, then, suggests an “elective affinity” between Republicans and a marriage-centered lifestyle. For a number of reasons — cultural, economic, and psychological — Republicans today appear more likely to have their children in marriage, to remain stably married, and to be happy in their marriages. In other words, most Republicans don’t live their lives like Trump or Gingrich. The question, of course, is whether “this Republican family advantage will persist if Republicans keep anointing leaders who don’t practice the family values the party has preached.”