With less than a year before the 2020 presidential election, a new poll of U.S. Catholics found that they largely favor a host of Democratic challengers to President Donald Trump.
But the survey also found that 58% of devout Catholics, those who say they accept all church teaching, were “sure to vote” for Trump next year — compared to 34% of all Catholics and 32% of respondents overall who were asked the same question.
The survey — conducted in cooperation between the Eternal World Television Network and RealClear Opinion Research — offers updated insights into the minds of American Catholics ahead of the upcoming Democratic primaries and the November general election.
“With few exceptions, for generations, tracking the preferences of the Catholic vote has proven to be a shortcut to predicting the winner of the popular vote — and I expect 2020 to be no different,” said John Della Volpe, director of the poll. “Like the rest of America, the 22% of the electorate comprising the Catholic vote is nuanced and diverse. And like America, the diverse viewpoints based on generation, race, and ethnicity are significant and prove that no longer are Catholic voters a monolith.”
There’ s also the notion of who exactly are these Catholic voters who support Trump? Here at GetReligion, tmatt has argued — quoting a veteran priest in Washington, D.C. — that there are actually four types of Catholic voters in America: Ex-Catholics, Cultural Catholics, Sunday-morning Catholics and “sweats the details and goes to Confession” Catholics. The poll doesn’t dig into any of these factors.
Since the days of John F. Kennedy, Democrats who are also Catholic have tried to reconcile the church’s teachings with their party’s politics. For example, APVoteCast, a survey taken during the 2018 midterm elections, found that 57% of Catholics said abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while Protestants and other Christians were evenly divided.
EWTN is a conservative Catholic news organization founded in by a nun named Mother Angelica that began broadcasting in 1981 from a garage studio in Irondale, Alabama. EWTN, its progressive critics argue, is the reason why American Catholics are so divided when it comes Pope Francis and the future of the church.
In 2016, Trump essentially split the Catholic vote with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, although the New York real estate magnate did win a majority of white Catholics. Trump also won the support of white evangelicals in 2016, something Pew Research says he continues to have, while members of other religious groups are less supportive.
The new poll shows the Catholic vote to be divided largely by age — older Americans tend to vote Republican (age 45 and older), younger ones (under 35) identify as Democrat. As a result, 34% of younger Catholics say they approve of Trump’s job performance, compared to 55% of older Catholics who approve of the president.
At the same time, both parties know the importance and impact the Hispanic vote could have in the 2020 race and future ones. Thirty-seven percent of Catholics in the United States are Hispanic, and 60% of them identify as Democrat.
In a series of hypothetical head-to-head match-ups, Catholics favored former Vice President Joe Biden 52% to 39% over Trump — similar to the 51% to 39% outcome among non-Catholics who were polled. Biden, the current front runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination, is a Roman Catholic.
The poll comes as Democrats in the House offer two articles of impeachment — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — against Trump over allegations he withheld aid in order to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden.
Catholicism took center stage in the impeachment proceedings when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got into an argument with a reporter at the conclusion of a news conference. As the California Democrat exited, James Rosen, a reporter for Sinclair Broadcast Group, asked, “Do you hate the president, Madam Speaker?”
"This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president's violation of the oath of office. And as a Catholic, I resent you using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me,” she said.
While the poll found that only 30% of Catholics said religious freedom is of great concern to them, a staggering 70% said Americans are becoming “less tolerant” of religion in America. Sixty-two percent of Catholic voters said they would like Christian values to play a more important role in society — that’s compared to 54% of all registered voters.
Robert George, who serves as Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, said “Catholics, in the aggregate, tend to line up on political questions pretty much the way the country does.”
“There’s not any distinctive margin for Catholics being conservative or being liberal, or really, strictly speaking being Democrat rather than Republican,” he said during an appearance on EWTN News Nightly. “Catholics, in general, will sometimes be a majority for Democrats, sometimes be a majority for Republicans. So if you know where the American public in general is on a candidate, or on an election referendum, you’ll pretty much know where the Catholics are, taken in the aggregate.”
There are an estimated 70 million Catholics in the United States, which represents 22% of the total population. The EWTN/RealClear Opinion Research poll included 2,055 registered voters (1,223 of whom were Catholic) and was conducted from November 15 to 21.
EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this post ran at Religion Unplugged.