Though the economy clearly was the defining issue of the election, Barack Obama forged a new coalition by luring millions of religious voters who had avoided Democrats in recent years.

Here’s what Sen. Obama did:

He narrowed the God Gap.

President George W. Bush beat Sen. John Kerry among weekly churchgoers by 61%-39% four years ago. Election night, Republican Sen. John McCain was ahead of Sen. Obama among the same group 54%-44%. Most of that gain appears to have come from Protestants rather than Catholics.

He won Catholics back.

Early exit polls indicate he won 54% of the Catholic vote compared with 45% for Sen. McCain. Mr. Bush won the Catholic vote 52%-46%. Most of those gains came from Catholics who don’t attend Mass weekly.

He also attracted a a greater portion of vote among white Catholics, according to the early exit polls. Mr. Bush got 56%-43% of the Catholic vote, while Sen. McCain lead by just 51%-49%. This was despite an aggressive push by more than 50 Catholic bishops to encourage Catholics to focus on abortion as the election’s central issue.

He made real improvements among Evangelicals.

Evangelicals and born-again Christians made up a greater portion of the electorate this year than last election, but that didn’t all accrue to Sen. McCain’s benefit, as predicted. The president-elect improved slightly on a national level, getting 25% compared with Sen. Kerry’s 21%.

But far more important, Sen. Obama made significant progress in the pivotal Rust Belt states that won him the election. For instance, evangelicals flooded the polls in Ohio, and Sen. Obama significantly improved on Sen. Kerry’s showing.

He made some gains among mainline Protestants.

Mainline Protestants, once a core of the Republican Party, still went for the GOP in 2004 even though they have been shifting toward the center in recent years. Last night’s exit polls didn’t ask specifically about mainline Protestants, but it appears Sen. Obama improved slightly with this group.

He made big gains among “lightly religious” voters.

Though secular voters already voted Democratic, they did so by an even bigger margin this year. Even more important, a quarter of the electorate says they go to worship services but only a few times a year. Sen. Kerry won that group 54%-45% four years ago. Sen. Obama won it 61%-38%.

Here’s how Sen. Obama did it:

“We worship an awesome God in the blue states,” Sen. Obama declared during his 2004 Democratic convention keynote. Thunderous applause greeted that line, in part because Democrats felt frustrated that they’d been unfairly cast as a secular or even anti-religion party, and by the political dominance of religious conservatives.

To a large degree, he was able to make such progress with these groups because of the economy. Some antiabortion voters went with Sen. Obama in spite of his positions on “values issues” — not because of them.

But Sen. Obama helped ease their way to his side through a canny set of tactics and strategies unlike anything we’ve seen from Democrats in years.