All 10 states that Gallup categorized as “very religious” voted for Mitt Romney in the past election by an average of 58.75 percent of popular vote. All 10 states that Gallup categorized as “not very religious” voted for Barack Obama in the 2012 election by an average of 59.3 percent of the popular vote.

Extremes in religion are almost as precise a predictor as of the presidential vote as Nate Silver’s analytical models, the gold standard in handicapping elections. The country is almost as divided by religion as it is by party, as illustrated by partisan and religious belief in creationism: the idea that humans were created in their present form at one time within the past 10,000 years, rather than evolving from common ancestry over 6 million years. To understand the difference between scientific fact and religious belief, it helps to be Jewish.

Sources: Gallup Politics, Evolution, Creationism, and the Battle to Control America’s Classrooms, uselectionatlas.org.