THE No 1 goal that Karl Rove set himself when President Bush took office four years ago was to energise the party’s white, evangelical Christian base. On Tuesday that strategy paid handsome dividends.

In no fewer than 11 states, Republican groups succeeded in getting proposed bans on gay marriage added to the ballot, and in all but one conservative Christians turned out in large numbers to ensure that those bans were approved overwhelmingly.

In the key swing state of Ohio, tens of thousands of Christian conservatives turned out to back the gay marriage ban. In the process they also voted for Mr Bush and may well have secured his re-election. In a Machiavellian move, this year Mr Bush called for a constitutional ban on gay marriage. It was a move that forced John Kerry to oppose it and breathed fire into the evangelical Right.

Overall three quarters of white voters who described themselves as born-again Christians or evangelicals supported Mr Bush on Tuesday. Those voters represented one fifth of the entire US electorate.

Exit polls suggested that “moral values” were the issue voters cared most about (at 22 per cent), trumping the economy and jobs (20 per cent), terrorism (19 per cent), and Iraq (15 per cent). Of those who viewed moral issues as the most important issue, 79 per cent voted for Mr Bush; 18 per cent for Mr Kerry.

As one analyst put it, in a moment of unintended double entendre, “gay marriage was the sleeper issue in this election”. Mr Rove had placed it there; it was a master stroke.

Gay marriage apart, there were 163 local ballot initiatives in 34 states on Tuesday. In California Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican Governor, managed to persuade voters to back a $6 billion (£3.25 billion) plan to fund stem-cell research, a move opposed by the White House. But they rejected a move to restrict the state’s “three strikes and you’re out” law to violent criminals.

In Colorado, voters rejected a measure that would have enabled the state to divide its nine electoral votes proportionally based on the popular vote. Mr Bush won the state.

Alabama appeared poised to include the promotion of shrimp in its constitution. Initial results showed that Alaskan voters had rejected a measure to outlaw hunters using pizza and doughnuts to lure bears out of the woods. They also rejected a move to decriminalise marijuana.

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