Greenberg Quinlan Rosner’s e-alert brings this good news about Dem inroads into one of the GOP’s more supportive constituencies:

Rural voters deliver a narrow plurality to a generic Democratic candidate for President: 46 – 43 percent. In contrast, President Bush won the rural vote in 2004 by 19 points. At the Congressional level, voters prefer Democrats in named trial heats 46 – 44 percent.

For more details, see this just-released bipartisan poll of LVs.

Thanks to MissLaura at Kos for flagging Senate 2008 Guru’s link-rich roundup of upcoming Senate races. The Guru takes issue with the CQPolitics description of a handful of races as “safe” for the GOP and provides interesting snapshots of current Senate races. Guru also cites an AP/IPSOS poll conducted 6/4-6, showing Americans “lean” toward Dems by a margin of 54-36 percent.

Ross Douthat’s article, “Crisis of Faith” in The Atlantic Monthly discusses the phenomenon of rising secularism in the U.S., while Europe is becoming increasingly enmeshed in religious controversy. In one graph Douthat notes:

Liberals have spent much of the past six years straining to cut into the GOP’s advantage among religious voters. But when the Democrats finally shattered the Republican majority in the 2006 midterms, it was their consolidation of the secular vote that helped put them over the top. Despite all their efforts to close the God gap, the Democrats managed barely any gains among frequent churchgoers last November—but their share of the vote among Americans who never attend church at all leaped to 67 percent, from 55 percent in 2002.

Douthat reports on a general secularization trend in the U.S., that fewer Americans are attending church every week. He notes a recent Pew Research Center survey indicating that 20 percent of young people say they have no religious affiliation — nearly double the percentage of the 1980’s (Summary Here). It makes sense that many of them would be turned off by the growing influence of theocons in the GOP.

The Pew Research Center has released what is likely the most thorough study ever of an often-overlooked constituency, “Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream” (108-page pdf here). While Muslims are a relatively small religious minority in the U.S. (.06 of U.S. adults), they are disproportionately concentrated in a few key states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio and are therefore positioned as a potentially influential constituency.
The survey of 60,000 interviewees, conducted from January though March, found that 63 percent of U.S. Muslims “lean Democratic,” with 11 percent leaning Republican and 26 percent leaning independent. Additionally, 63 percent of U.S. Muslim citizens said they were registered to vote, compared with 76 percent of the general public.
The survey found that 73 percent believe government “should do more to help the needy,” compared with 63 percent of the general public. But the survey confirmed that American Muslims as a whole are far more conservative on some social issues, such as their view of homosexuality.
The study includes a large quantity of interesting demographic and attitudinal detail about U.S. Muslims, and is highly recommended for Dems who want to better understand this constituency.

Washington Monthly has a mini-forum that should be of considerable interest to Dem campaigns, “How a Democrat Can Get My Vote: Advice from seven recent war veterans.” The vets are nearly all writers, and their insights and tips can help Dems focus on winning the support of America’s veterans.

Chris Kromm gives both political strategists and policy wonks something to chew on in his Facing South post “Changing South: Half of K-12 students are ‘minority.’” Kromm reports on the explosive growth of African Americans and Hispanics in the south, noting that 47 percent of the south’s K-12 public school students are now people of color. The implications for immigration, education and tax policy should be huge in upcomming election cycles.