Why Christians Are Disproportionately Powerful in Congress

There are at least two good explanations for this phenomenon. The first is that religiously unaffiliated Americans don't vote. Another way of putting that is that young people don't vote: According to the Public Religion Research Institute, 18-to-29-year-olds are three times as likely to be religiously unaffiliated compared to people over 65. Even though the religiously unaffiliated share of the American population has significantly increased from 14 to 22 percent between 2004 and 2014, the share of religiously unaffiliated voters only increased from 9 to 12 percent.