President Barack Obama's victory relied largely on two dramatically different religious coalitions - minority Christians and those with no religion - according to a survey released Thursday.

"This presidential election is the last in which a white Christian strategy will be considered a plausible path to victory," said Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, which conducted the survey. "The American religious and ethnic landscape is becoming increasingly diverse, and any campaigns relying on outdated maps are destined to lose their way."

 

One-in-four Obama voters were religiously unaffiliated, the second-largest "religious" demographic in the president's coalition, according to the study (PDF). Minority Christians - consisting of black, Asian, Hispanic and mixed-race Americans - made up 31% of Obama's coalition, the largest religious group.

 

Among major religious demographics, Obama struggled most with white Christians, including Catholics, mainline Protestants and evangelical Protestants. When these three groups were added up, they accounted for just 35% of Obama's religious coalition. In comparison, Republican challenger Mitt Romney's coalition was overwhelmingly white and Christian, with 79% of Romney voters identifying as such.

 

The Public Religion Research Institute numbers flesh out exit polls released after Election Day. According tothose numbers, 70% of the religiously unaffiliated supported Obama, compared with 26% who backed Romney. Ninety-five percent of black Protestants voted for Obama, according to the exit polls, while 75% of Hispanic Catholics supported the president.

 

Romney, according to the exit polls, overwhelmingly won white evangelical Christians (79% voted for him) and white Catholics (59% voted for him).

 

The rise of the religiously unaffiliated has been a major recent trend. A survey by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released this year found that the fastest-growing "religious" group in America is made up of people with no religion at all. According to the survey, 20% of adult Americans have no religious affiliation.

 

At an event announcing the Pew results, senior research adviser John Green said the growing political power of the unaffiliated within the Democratic Party could become similar to the power the religious right acquired in the GOP in the 1980s.

 

The 2012 election results have some political experts questioning whether the religious right's influence is fading.