Political Parties and the Catholic Vote in 2024

Long gone are the days when Catholics were mostly Democrats.  Today it’s almost a toss-up.

According to Greg Smith, associate director of religion research at the Pew Research Center, “in recent presidential elections, Catholic voters have swung back and forth between the Republican and Democratic candidates. They’ve tended to be evenly divided.”

But just 10 years ago, according to a 2014 Pew Religious Landscape Study, 37 percent of Catholics were Republicans or leaned Republican while 44 percent were Democrats or leaned Democrat.  The remaining 19 percent were Independents or favored a third party.

Today, however, according to Statista.com, 25 percent of Catholics are Republicans or lean Republican, while 23 percent of Catholics are Democrats or lean Democrat.  Ergo, 52 percent of Catholics are now Independents or favor a third party. So, what happened?

In an article at CatholicCulture.com, Peter Wolfgang, president of Family Institute of Connecticut Action, took a look at what he thinks are some of the reasons for the shifting tide in party affiliation.

The 1800s

In the 1800s, Wolfgang points out, the arrival of large numbers of immigrant Catholics, “sparked a nativist anti-Catholicism in what had largely been a homogenous White Anglo Saxon Protestant nation.

“Much of this nativist anti-Catholicism found its political home in the Republican Party. As a result, most Catholics naturally gravitated toward the Democratic Party.”

Yet following the Civil War it was the Republican Party that championed equality for the newly freed slaves.  Southern Democrats, especially, did their best to make sure African Americans remained second class citizens by adopting black codes and literacy tests for voting and various Jim Crow laws.  This may have started a slow shift to the Republican party.

Shifting Affiliation

Wolfgang, however, attributes the Catholic shift from the Dems to the GOP to a cultural shift to the left.  The shift, he writes, took place “Beginning with the McGovern Campaign in 1972.”

Recall, too, that the Democratic party began reinventing itself in the 1960s.   All of a sudden the party of segregation became the party of equal rights.  Apparently they finally figured out what Republicans had known all along – that all men (and women) are created equal.

Ironically, it was Lyndon B. Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964 that started the ball rolling. Democrats were firmly in control of both the House and Senate during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.  Yet congressmen and senators from the heavily Democrat South voted against the legislation.  Congressmen and senators from the northern states, predominantly Republican, voted in favor on the legislation.  It was the Republican vote that got the legislation passed.

And once the Civil Rights Act became law, Democrats did an about face.  They began courting the African American vote.  (They’ve even gone so far, in recent years, of accusing Republicans of employing their own tactic – trying to make it difficult for African Americans to vote. There’s some irony for you!)

In any case, by the 1980s, writes Wolfgang, “we had the “Reagan Democrats,” Catholics disenchanted with their former party who were now trending Republican.”

Getting to Today

In the 40-plus years since the 80s, the culture shift continued and morals and values continued declining.  Technology advanced, China grew stronger, and liberal Supreme Courts found rights in our Constitution that were not even there.  The national debt also went bonkers with politicians spending money like it grew on trees.

We lived through the Gulf War, followed by eight years of the Clinton administration championing abortion and homosexuality (remember “Don’t ask, don’t tell”?).  Operation Enduring Freedom came in response to 9/11, and DEI and Wokism was launched during the Obama years.

Then in 2016 Donald Trump quashed Hilary Clinton’s bid to become the first female president.  And despite predictions that he would be a terrible  president (see some of the comments on my CS articles here and here) he did a pretty good job of running the country until Covid hit in the last year of his presidency.

All of this most certainly had an effect on Catholic party affiliation in some way because the Catholic vote was fairly evenly split in 2020.

2024

And so we come to the 2024 elections.

According to a recent Pew poll, “52% [of Catholics polled] said they were backing Trump in the race, compared with 47% who said they favored Harris.”  Apparently the 52 percent who are Independents or who favor a third party have picked a side.

As many pundits have written, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats fully adhere to Catholic teaching and values.  And the Dems, once the party of the working man, are now like the GOP.  They  are just as tied to big business and billionaire backers these days as the Republicans.

But another twist has taken place in the last 10 years.  The GOP has ‘softened’ it’s stance on moral issues like abortion and homosexual ‘marriage.’

No Kudos for the GOP

And still another wrinkle in the GOP has emerged with Wolfgang’s article. Wolfgang points out that the GOP seems to have a “creepy affiliation with Freemasonry.”

According to Wolfgang’s largely, admittedly, anecdotal accounts, Free Masonry seems to have infected the Republican party.  And, as all Catholics should know, Catholicism and Free Masonry are incompatible.

As then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote back in 1983, Catholics cannot be Free Masons.  Nothing has changed since then.  (See “The New Catholic Encyclopedia” tract on Masonry for more information.)

Whether or not Catholics were aware of this “creepy affiliation with Freemasonry,” Catholics have certainly become more aware of the GOP’s  ‘softened stance’ on moral issues.

The Lessor of Two Evils

As I wrote in a CS article in 2016, “Democratic and Republican politicians alike have been telling us for years that they’re going to fix all our country’s problems, but the problems just seem to be getting worse no matter which politicians we elect.  And the politicians seem to be getting rich while the middle class struggles and continues to shrink.”

By now most Catholics have realized that neither party fully upholds Catholic teaching.  But I think more and more Catholics are also realizing that Democratic party policies are moving further away from Catholic teaching than are Republican policies.  So how will Catholics vote in this election?

It’s rather sad that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are the best candidates for president each party can come up with.  However, one of these to individuals will be our country’s next president.

Pope Francis recently stated our election this year is a choice between the lesser of two evils – “one who throws out migrants and the one who kills babies.” But His Holiness may have fallen prey to misinformation because his contention is incorrect.

One of the candidates does support killing babies. The other, however, only wants to deport illegal immigrants, not legal immigrants.  Deportation is a legitimate response to anyone who enters a country illegally.

Deportation

The U.S. has very generous immigration laws.  What’s more, the U.S. “has been the main country of destination for international migrants since 1970” according to the UN’s World Migration Report.  As such, controlling immigration is necessary.

Catholic Teaching affirms a nation’s right (and responsibility) to control immigration:

“2241 The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

“Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.”

Some Catholics, however, say deportation is intrinsically evil.  Catholic Apologist Trent Horn refutes this claim in an article at Catholic Answers.  His article addresses Catholic Teaching on the morality of deportation.

Vote For the Lessor of Two Evils

So before you vote this year, ask yourself, what is more evil: supporting the murder of innocent babies, or not allowing people to enter your country illegally and deporting those who do so?

Forget about party affiliation this year.  And ignore the lies in the campaign ads and the biased media coverage when you vote.  Just vote for the lesser of two evils.

The Editor- in chief’s reminder: The writers on Catholic Stand are united as obedient Catholics, but please do not attribute the opinions of any one writer to the entire group as a whole.