Like many evangelical Christians, Jason Fletcher isn't thrilled about voting for Republicans in the coming elections. The way he sees it, Bible-believers helped Republicans win the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate and the presidency, yet the party's accomplishments have been disappointing at best.

Still, on Tuesday, he will vote Republican again.

Democrats might be poised to win a majority of state capitols, perhaps even Congress, but they likely won't do it with the support of evangelical Christians, most of whom say they will hold their noses and continue to vote for the party they helped bring to power in 2004.

"Right now, the Republican Party is still the best choice on matters of life and embryonic stem-cell research," said Fletcher, a pastor who is starting a church in Morrisville.

A recent Pew Research Center poll confirms Fletcher's predicament. It shows that white evangelical support for the Republican Party has declined to 54 percent this past July compared with 74 percent in the days after the 2004 elections. Yet despite a broad sense of disillusionment with the Republican Party and with President Bush, evangelical Christians are sticking with the GOP.

That means the key to Democratic victories could lie in evangelical turnout. Although they might not vote for Democrats, evangelicals may stay away from the polling booths Tuesday, lowering the numbers that turned out for President Bush and his party in 2004.

"It becomes a turnout game," said Andrew Taylor, professor of political science at N.C. State University. "The question is: Is the basic discontent going to turn people off?"

Whether it is the government's response to the ongoing war in Iraq, the failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform or the Mark Foley congressional page scandal, evangelicals have given middling scores to the party in power. Some are dismayed by a charge in David Kuo's new book, "Tempting Faith," that Bush administration staffers privately dismissed evangelical Christian political activists as "nuts" and "goofy."

But such controversies have compelled few local evangelicals to defect to the Democratic ticket.

"I, as much as anybody, think they've screwed things up," said the Rev. J.D. Greear, pastor of the Summit Church in Durham, referring to Republicans. But Greear doesn't think evangelicals are likely to switch sides.

The Summit Church, like many others, isn't planning voter registration drives or passing out voter guides this year. Greear said that at most he will remind the 1,800 people who attend his Southern Baptist congregation of their civic and Christian duty to vote.

That is the sentiment at many evangelical churches across the Triangle.

In part, the lack of enthusiasm may reflect a midterm election that is less than exciting. Of the evangelicals running in North Carolina races, none are household names. The state has no statewide initiative on same-sex marriage to energize conservative voters, although a recent New Jersey court ruling recognizing same-sex unions might interest some evangelicals in state Supreme Court races.

Voter turnout is expected to be low.

Still, many groups such as Called2Action, a Wake County church coalition, are trying to revive interest. The group published a voters guide. Its political action committee published a list of endorsements.

"I know many of us are frustrated with our leaders, but staying home on November 7th to 'send them a message' is irresponsible and reckless," Chairman Steve Noble of Raleigh wrote in an e-mail message to members. "If you do that, you will be enabling the efforts of many people who do not cling to our biblical world-view ..."

Noble just returned from South Dakota, where evangelical Christians are pressing for the passage of a statewide referendum that would ban virtually all abortions. The legislature there already has passed such a ban, and many within the evangelical movement think that if the referendum passes, it could finally force the U.S. Supreme Court to re-examine Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that provided for legal abortions.

At the same time, other evangelicals think it is time Christians broadened their horizons beyond bedroom issues such as abortion and marriage. Poverty and the environment are attracting more attention in evangelical churches. Many are funding mission projects to alleviate AIDS in Africa or human-rights abuses in other parts of the world.

"For churches in America, it's awfully easy to be concerned with issues that affect us directly," said the Rev. Larry Trotter of North Wake Church in Wake Forest. "It's important to have issues that relate to the world."

Chad Harvey, the pastor at First Assembly of God in Raleigh, agrees. He thinks voters should consider social issues such as poverty, as well as moral issues such as abortion, when they cast their votes. But in the end, he said he's still voting Republican.

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