Catholics Moving to Democratic Party

Democrats Have Edge Among US Catholics

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown has some new data that shows that Catholics identify as Republicans at a lower rate than at any point since 2000, when Al Gore won the Catholic vote.

The Republicans labored mightily to disqualify John Kerry's Catholicism for conservative Catholics in 2004,and on the surface, it appears as if they succeeded: according to the 2004 exit polls, President Bush won a majority and increased his margin over 2000 by five points -- Gore won them by three points in 2000. (Note: a Pew study found that regular massgoers actually swung away (by three points) from President Bush in 2004, which suggests that the communion and abortion controversies weren't that relevant.)

The CARA study finds that 57% of US Catholic adults identity as Democrats or Democratic leaners, while 40% identify as Republicans or Republican leaners. The shift from 2004 holds across all attitudinal levels, including frequency of mass attendance and the degree to which Catholics rely on doctrine, age, and gender.

The polling data also indicates that Catholic attitudes on social, political and moral issues have shifted during the Bush administration, especially regarding two issues: the use of U.S. military force and taxes. Attitudes about immigration policy have also changed slightly and opinions regarding life and social justice issues have remained relatively stable. “Overall, these shifting Catholic attitude trends, less support for the use of U.S. military force, more support for higher taxes for wealthy Americans, and increasing acceptance of immigration, may favor the Democrats and Obama,” said Mark Gray, director of CARA Catholic Polls. In 2002, before the Iraq war, 63 percent of adult Catholics agreed “somewhat” or “strongly” that “The U.S. should be willing to use military force to overthrow governments that support terrorism against the U.S., even if it mean losing lives of U.S. service members.” In 2006, only 43 percent agreed with this statement – a shift of 20 percentage points. An increasing number of Catholics support a tax increase for the wealthiest Americans; 65 percent agreed in 2006, up from 52 percent in 2002. Catholics have also become less likely to agree that the number of immigrants permitted to come to the United States should be decreased; 54 percent in 2006, down from 65 percent in 2002. Among Catholics who attend Mass at least once a week, Republicans are more numerous than in the Catholic electorate at large. However, weekly attenders are still more likely to be Democrats than anything else.

In 2004, there was a lot of talk among conservatives about the great Catholic-Evangelical coming together. What happens in 2008?

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate ( CARA ) is a nonprofit, independent and nonpartisan research institution at Georgetown University. CARA researchers conduct applied social scientific research related to the Catholic Church in the United States. CARA was created in 1964 and has been affiliated with Georgetown University since 1989. CARA’s national polls of adult Catholic have been conducted annually since 2000. To date, CARA has conducted CARA’s 19 national surveys of self-identified adult Catholics, including more than 21,000 respondents during the 2000 and 2008 period.

http://cara.georgetown.edu/pr061808.pdf