(ANALYSIS) Count Pope Francis as a “double hater.” Yes, he’s too benevolent to actually hate anyone, but the pontiff perfectly fits that slang term for Americans in 2024 who cannot embrace either presidential nominee. 

Chatting with reporters at the end of his recent tour of Southeast Asia, Francis named no names but said both candidates “are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants or the one who kills babies.”

That of course meant Donald Trump’s fervent hostility to illegal immigrants, a “grave” sin in the pope’s eyes, and Kamala Harris’s ardent advocacy of abortion freedom, which he likened to “assassination.” 

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“Not voting is wrong. You must vote,” Pope Francis remarked, and “you must choose the lesser evil. Who is the lesser evil? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know.”

What about his American parishioners? How Catholic voters view the candidates and issues could nudge margins enough to swing the election, and so could many other factors in such a nail-biter. Though political coverage emphasizes evangelicals, shifts by the two different Catholic segments are usually much more important in general elections. 

White non-Hispanic Catholics gradually developed modest but reliable Republican majorities following Democratic loyalty in the Al Smith/John F. Kennedy epoch. Hispanic Catholics are reliably Democratic and by larger margins (but may be more in play this time). The Pew Research Center reports that as of 2022, secularizing Hispanics self-identified as 43% Catholic (compared with 58 percent as recently as 2012), 30% religiously unaffiliated (only 13 percent in 2012) and 15% evangelical Protestant (which has held steady). 

This all comes as Trump confirmed on Monday that he would be the sole featured speaker at this year’s Al Smith charity dinner in New York, typically a good-humored and bipartisan political event that Harris said she’s skipping.

The gala event — a roast that benefits Catholic Charities — has traditionally been used to promote collegiality between the candidates. Harris’ failure to appear marks the first time in 40 years that a presidential candidate has declined the invitation.

At the same time, two notable new surveys of Catholics offer conflicting clues. In an SSRS poll for Pew, concluded Sept. 2, Catholic respondents overall were evenly divided between Harris and Trump at 49% each. The white, non-Hispanic Catholics favored Trump at an impressive 61% versus 38% for Harris. Hispanic Catholics favored Harris by a customary 65% to 34%.  

Compare that with a poll of U.S. Catholic voters completed Aug. 30 for the traditionalist Catholic Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) by RealClear Opinion Research. Catholics overall favored Harris at 50% over Trump at 43%. Trump led with White non-Hispanic Catholics by only 52% to 42%. Harris led with the Hispanics by 60% to 30%.  

Most remarkable was EWTN’s report that female Catholics favored Harris by a commanding 56% to 37% for Trump. While Trump led among Catholic men, he only did so 49% to 43% for Harris. Compare that with Washington Monthly’s Gender Gap Tracker, where Harris holds an average 11.4% poll margin over Trump among women as a whole with a 6.8% Trump advantage among men. Some polling suggests 2024’s gender gap could be the biggest on record. 

On the issues, Pew found 77% of atheists said abortion is “very important” in voting decisions, but only 44% of Catholics or White Protestants said the same. Curiously, 72% of White Catholics deemed immigration policy “very important,” but only 57% of Hispanic Catholics did. (The economy was very much the chief concern with all religious categories, as with other voters).

As pundits continually remind us, the nationwide popular vote featured in so many polls does not determine the presidency. The winner needs 270 or more Electoral College votes, state by state. Of the 61,858,137 U.S. Catholics (children included) in the recent U.S. Religion Census, 9.7 million live in the seven key battleground states everyone is talking about. 

Pew lists these Catholic population percentages in those states: Arizona (21%) and Nevada (25%) with their sizable Hispanic communities, then Michigan (18%), Pennsylvania (24%) and Wisconsin (25%). Protestants dominate in Georgia and North Carolina, both only 9% Catholic.

Apart from Catholics, Pew found religious groups generally reflected the pattern in prior elections: White evangelicals backed Trump 82% to 16%. White nonevangelical and mainline Protestants backed Trump 58% to 41%. Black Protestants backed Harris 86% to 11%. Jews backed Harris 65% to 34% amid the ongoing Gaza war. (There were too few Muslims or others to provide reliable data).  

Then this biggie: Democrats increasingly rely upon voters without religious affiliation, and they favored Harris by a typical 68% to 28%. A May column by political scientist Ryan Burge pondered why Democrats don’t fare better in elections when the unaffiliated have grown to 29% of Americans as of 2021. 

For one thing, they’re not as overwhelmingly Democratic as, say, Black voters. Christians still make up 44% of the Democratic coalition. They’re harder to organize than churchgoers, almost by definition. And though full-blooded atheists are keenly active in politics, many of the unaffiliated are as tuned out or turned off on voting as on organized religion. Also, note Burge’s recent analysis of the “God gap” among voters. 

The known unknowns include turnout, October surprises, tiny attitude shifts during the campaign’s remaining weeks or surprises in little-discussed places, such as Iowa, 18% Catholic with a Trump lead of 4%, or the quirky single electoral vote in heavily Catholic Maine District 2, where Harris is up 5 points. The most crucial unknown is whether Harris, still relatively unknown, will regularly open herself to unscripted questions in town halls with voters, press conferences and major media interviews. 

As usual, Catholic voters in 2024 broadly reflect — and affect — America as a whole. There's no solid evidence the fact running mate J.D. Vance is a Catholic convert will affect voting.  The numbers imply Catholics will deliver a modest popular vote majority for Harris. The Electoral College is impossible to predict, but it’s conceivable that Catholic women would provide the pro-choice and female Democrat a close victory margin.

Technicalities: Pew's large sample of 9,720 adults in its ongoing American Trends Panel allowed a superb 91% response rate (a key weakness with most polls nowadays), reliable breakdowns by religion, and a small overall margin of error of plus or minus 1.3 percentage points. The margin of error with EWTN’s survey of 1,000 Catholics is plus or minus 3 points.

Richard N. Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He has interviewed such personalities as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths; as well as numerous ordinary believers. He writes a bi-weekly column for Religion Unplugged.