Renewed Focus On White Catholic Vote In 2024
Pope Francis greets then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican March 19, 2013, as the new pontiff received dignitaries following his inaugural Mass. (Photo courtesy Vatican Media)
(ANALYSIS) Fellow GetReligion contributor Ryan Burge’s Nov. 20 Substack column “The Myth of the White Catholic Democrat” was as informative as usual, with solid data that reinforce one of The Guy’s perennial contentions in these Memos.
Such as? Consider this previous headline: “Repeat after me: White Catholics voting in 2004. White Catholics voting in 2024 ...” If that isn’t enough, search through this Google News file for more. The Big Idea is that journalists should pay more attention to White Catholics, who’ll very likely decide who wins the presidency next November.
Those much-covered White evangelicals are important, but where they count is with intra-Republican primary maneuvers, whereas for decades they’ve given the party’s presidential nominee predictably wide margins. (White mainline Protestants are weaker and divided. Hispanic and Black Christians are politically distinct from white co-religionists.)
The Pew Research Center defines the nation’s three major religious blocs as evangelical Protestants (25.4% of the population), Catholics both White and Hispanic (20.8%), and “nones” without religious affiliation (22.8%). With evangelicals lopsidedly Republican and nones overwhelmingly Democratic, the Catholics are always the swing vote to watch. World without end. Amen.
Burge reminds us there are tons of Catholic voters and they’re widely distributed around the U.S. as a factor in many states. Note Pew Research data for the Catholic populations in these swing states: Arizona 21%, Florida 21%, Michigan 18%, Nevada 25%, New Hampshire 26%, Ohio 18%, Pennsylvania 24% and Wisconsin 25%.
White Catholics’ move toward the Republicans is one of the era’s most important political developments (and, as our own tmatt has stressed for years, something appears to be brewing with Hispanic Catholics). Their margin for the GOP is modest but increasingly dependable, and in states like Florida that really matters.
Looking back, Catholics’ 82% vote in 1960 for the first president of their faith, John F. Kennedy, was an outlier. But standard General Social Survey data showed 67% backing for Democrats among white Catholics as of 1972, then a slip below 50% in George H.W. Bush’s 1988 election, down to the current 36% (with 44% Republican but far higher in actual elections, and 20% identifying as independent.) He offers much more data along these lines.
White Catholics are turning “right of center,” Burge concludes, and there’s an empirical basis to think the GOP coalescence will continue. “The liberal Democrat white Catholic is pretty much a myth. ...To be a white Christian is to be a Republican. Now more than ever.”
The Guy would add the observation that today’s Democrats are either oblivious to this tectonic shift or cannot conceive of steps to reverse it, perhaps due to their heavy reliance upon nonreligious and anti-religious voters (especially those who loathe evangelical Protestants). The economy is crucial, but so are the kinds of cultural issues that end up at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Though the clergy may not have the same level of influence they once exercised, it’s notable that new data from a major survey of U.S. priests shows a remarkable conservative shift on politics since the 1960s, accompanied by increased conservatism on religion. The percentage of newly ordained priests self-described as “liberal” in politics or “progressive” in theology “has been steadily declining since the Second Vatican Council and has now all but vanished,” the report asserts. Click here for more data.
A brief Republican update: Seven weeks before the caucus in devout Iowa, FiveThirtyEight.com averages show a slight dip by heavy favorite Donald Trump to 44.7% support, suggesting his ceiling is frozen below 50%. Ron DeSantis is down a bit at 17.5%, while Nikki Haley has risen notably to 15.3%. Will it matter that two top religious activists reject Trump, Marlys Popma backing Haley and Bob Vander Plaats for DeSantis?
Next up are New Hampshire and South Carolina, and at this moment Haley looks to be solidly second to Trump in both. Nevada will be an early mess, with both a caucus and a primary beauty contest that have differing candidate lists. Then comes Trumpified Michigan.
By the way, on Tuesday, Haley scored the significant endorsement of Americans For Prosperity Action, whose backers include religious conservatives. This opens access to major donors allied with billionaire Charles Koch and a network of activists that reported millions of voter contacts in 2022.
A year ago, 67% of U.S. Catholics in a sizable EWTN poll did not want former President Trump on the ballot again, and 58% of them said the same about President Joe Biden.
Therefore, keep a reportorial eye on White Catholics Larry Hogan, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Joe Manchin; Black Protestant theologian Cornel West, with his pro-Palestinian appeal; and the Green Party’s Jill Stein, whose 1% in swing states undercut Hillary Clinton and arguably caused Trump’s 2016 win. The Libertarians have 15 hopefuls running, but none with the potential of former Gov. Gary Johnson, who took 3.3% nationwide in 2016.
This piece first appeared at GetReligion.org.
Richard Ostling is a former religion reporter for The Associated Press and a former correspondent for TIME Magazine. He’s also worked in broadcast TV and radio journalism covering religion and received a lifetime achievement award from Religion News Association.