Catholic voters turned out in droves for President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday, playing a key role in propelling the Republican to the White House for a second term.
Trump held an 18-point lead among Catholics as of Thursday morning, who made up roughly a quarter of the vote, according to early exit polling by The Washington Post. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris struggled to gain traction with Catholics who largely disagreed with her broad abortion support and apparent anti-Catholic rhetoric.
Despite disagreeing with some of his policy stances, many Catholics favored President Joe Biden in 2020 in part because they viewed him as one of them, which is an advantage Harris’ campaign did not have in 2024, Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. (Watch the Daily Caller’s Documentary ‘Cleaning Up Kamala’ HERE)
“Whatever you think of Biden’s social or domestic policies, he is a frequently mass attending Catholic from Pennsylvania who knows the language, you know, and is able to develop an affinity with Catholic voters based on that shared experience, that shared faith experience,” Reed said.
Catholics favored President Joe Biden in 2020 by a margin of 52 to 47, according to previous exit polling from the Post.
With neither Harris nor running mate Tim Walz identifying as Catholic, the Democratic ticket was unable to resonate with Catholic voters as well as Trump could with the addition of his Catholic running mate, JD Vance.
“This is not the first time we’ve had a post election survey news conference where we have said, yet again, the Democrats have a religion problem, and it is serious, it is lethal,” Reed said. “Biden was able to square that circle by personally talking about the seriousness of his faith and being seen frequently attending Mass and, you know, meeting the Pope or leaving a service and talking to the Father, the priest and so forth. Those visual images really matter. Meanwhile, he was going to the progressive left and saying, you have my entire domestic policy brief, whatever you want to do.”
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden(C) and his wife Jill Biden leave St. Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church in Wilmington, Delaware on November 3, 2020. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
Another issue compelling the religious vote on Tuesday may have been Harris’ lack of defense of Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza, which Catholics and other religious voters may have seen as the candidate being unwilling to defend religious liberties, Reed told the DCNF.
“I think that this has been devastating to the Democrats,” Reed said. “There is no way to underscore enough how much this issue resonates with church going Protestants, and especially evangelicals.”
Protestants and other Christians also supported Trump on Tuesday by a wide margin of 63 to 36 as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the Post.
Debates circulated around Biden’s commitment to his faith when a priest denied him Holy Communion in 2019 over his support and promotion of abortion as a public official. The Biden Pentagon revealed in March that it had spent just under $45,000 in taxpayer dollars between June and December of 2023 on travel expenses for military members to receive abortions.
The Biden administration was also accused of infringing on religious freedom after it attempted to force religious doctors and hospitals to perform transgender surgeries despite the procedures conflicting with their faith. Biden later took flak for proclaiming Easter Sunday to be “transgender day of visibility” in March.
It was also revealed that the FBI reportedly “abused its counterterrorism tools” to target Catholics and pro-life advocates, labeling them as “potential domestic terrorists,” according to the House Weaponization Subcommittee. The committee was referring to a February 2023 memo from the Richmond field office that described traditionalist Roman Catholics as “radical,” which the Bureau eventually retracted.
“Catholic voters played a decisive role in the historic victory of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance,” Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote, said in a statement in response to the double-digit exit polling. “These numbers are shocking, and could prove to be the largest margin among Catholics in a presidential race in decades. Catholics proved again to be a critical voting bloc that cannot be ignored.”
CatholicVote previously sounded the alarm on Harris’ apparent “anti-Catholic prejudice” and her “extreme positions” on abortion. Harris stated in an October interview that she did not support any exemptions for abortion, including religious exemptions, driving Christian organizations and voters further from the candidate.
“Kamala Harris ran an anti-Catholic campaign,” Ashley McGuire, senior fellow at the Catholic Association, said in a statement. “Whether mocking Catholic school girls or insisting Catholic doctors be forced to perform abortions, Harris made no efforts to hide her disdain for people of faith and disregard for religious liberty. Thankfully the voters rejected that extremism. President Trump will take office with a mandate to reject anti-Catholic extremism and restore the safeguards around America’s First Freedom.”
Many Catholics also felt Harris’ decision to not attend the Al Smith charity dinner in October — an event that supports the medical and financial needs of children — was a snub to voters. Harris is the first major party candidate to skip the event since Walter Mondale in 1984, who lost his election to President Ronald Reagan in a landslide.
“Kamala Harris’ snub of the Al Smith dinner is insulting, though unsurprising, considering her track record of hostility towards Catholics and people of faith,” Burch told the Daily Caller in October.
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