Once again, a news organization seems to think the only people of faith who matter are white, conservative people of faith. This time it's Politico:

But it turns out (big surprise) that by “Christian voters,” Politico meant "conservative Christian voters."

Though several moderate to conservative evangelical pastors support the president, polls show that a significant percentage of conservative Christians remain skeptical about Obama's sincerity when it comes to the values that he says they share, and many say they doubt his faith. [Emphasis added]

Oh, and it also turns out that Politico meant white Christian voters:

During the 2008 presidential election, voting patterns show Obama won modest but significant swaths of religious voters, winning a higher percentage of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish voters than John Kerry did in 2004.

But according to a recent Pew Research poll, more white evangelicals erroneously believe that Obama is Muslim than those who believe he is Christian, and 42 percent say they don't know what religion he practices at all. [Emphasis added]

That's the only polling data Politico offers in support of its claim that “Christian voters” are abandoning Obama: poll data about white evangelicals. The entire article is about conservative, evangelical voters. (The word “conservative” appears eight times in the article.)

It's like Politico has forgotten that non-whites and non-conservatives can be Christians, too. Which is odd since the photo accompanying the article shows President Obama speaking to what appears to be a largely African-American congregation:

I can only assume Politico's headline writers understood that “Conservative white evangelicals don't like Obama” isn't exactly news, and that understanding led to the conflation of conservative white evangelicals with all Christians.

Meanwhile, here's a recent Pew finding Politico didn't mention:

Most Republicans (57%) see the GOP as friendly to religion, which is little changed from last year (59%). However, the proportion of white evangelicals saying the Republican Party is friendly to religion has slipped, from 53% last year to 46% today.

So, white evangelicals, a core GOP constituency, are “losing faith” in the Republican Party -- but Politico ignores that and runs an article conflating the skepticism of President Obama among white evangelicals with the views of all Christian voters.

I've previously addressed the conflation of “observant Catholics” with “white, non-Hispanic Catholics” by the Washington Post and Ramesh Ponnuru. Also related: Byron York's weird suggestion that President Obama's approval among African Americans doesn't really count.