When Sen. John McCain picked Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, something happened among conservative evangelicals. They got excited about voting.

A two-part email survey by Crosswalk.com showed that support for the Republican candidate jumped among conservative evangelicals after he announced Sarah Palin as his running mate. A follow-up survey found that this support remained unchanged even after news surfaced of Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy. The survey also polled voters on the importance of a candidate’s religion and asked them to rank hot-button policy issues.

More than 4,000 Crosswalk users nationwide participated in these surveys.

“The religious conservative voting block is increasingly influential and it would be difficult to over emphasize the importance of this constituency in the 2008 elections,” said Chad Nykamp, Salem Web Network Director of Marketing, who oversaw the survey.

“Bottom line, for McCain to win he is going to need the support of Evangelicals and it appears that he will have it.  It would also be difficult to over emphasize the impact that Sarah Palin has had on this race.  Palin energized a previously very unenthusiastic group of Christian conservatives.”

The Palin Effect

In the weeks leading up to his VP pick, McCain held 73 percent of the evangelical vote. Just one week after announcing Palin as his running mate, that percentage jumped to 80 percent and the number of undecided evangelicals dropped by half.

Obama’s retained just 13 percent of the evangelical vote, both before and after the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

More than 35 percent of the 1,771 people surveyed in part two considered a candidate’s choice of running mate to have “a lot of influence” on their voting decision. Another 45% said the choice had at least some influence on their vote.

The McCain/Palin ticket also resonated with evangelicals who describe themselves as Independent. Support for the Republican ticket among these voters jumped from 54 percent to 62 percent – an 8 percent increase – after the announcement of Palin’s nomination.

Even among Republican evangelicals, voter intentions show a post-VP pick jump. McCain now holds 96 percent of those votes, compared to 91 percent in prior weeks.

The survey also indicates that Palin is indeed appealing to female voters. Previous support showed McCain with a little more than 70 percent of the evangelical female vote, jumping to 79 percent after the VP pick. The percentage of undecided voters in this demographic dropped by 50 percent. Meanwhile, Obama’s support among female evangelicals remains unchanged at 14 percent.