Poll: 53% of Catholics Plan to Vote for or Open to Voting for Trump

A poll released by EWTN News and Real Clear Politics has found a combined 53 percent of American Catholics either plan to vote for President Donald Trump (34 percent), say there is a good chance they will vote for Trump (ten percent), or say it is possible they will vote for Trump (nine percent) in 2020.

The survey, however, reflects a divided Church in many areas, including a commitment to the Catholic faith and ethnic and generational differences.

A new @EWTNews / RealClear Opinion Research poll finds Catholics open to re-electing President Trump, disappointed in how their leaders have handled the clergy sexual abuse crisis, and divided according to being active in the practice of the faith. https://t.co/caXaa99NKQ pic.twitter.com/0XPrvCaSch

— EWTN News (@EWTNews) December 10, 2019

According to the poll, there is “an enormous gulf” between active Catholics, i.e., those who accept all or most of the Church’s teachings and attend Mass regularly, and those who say they are Catholic but do not see the faith as having significance in their lives.

Additionally, younger Catholic voters tend to identify as Democrats, while older Catholics are inclined to vote Republican.

Ethnicity has taken on a prominent role in how “Catholics” vote as 37 percent of American Catholics are now Hispanic/Latino, a group that trends “solidly 60 percent Democrat.”

“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.” John Della Volpe, director of the RealClear survey https://t.co/QrW5SlIGvj pic.twitter.com/dYe5cnryvR

— EWTN News (@EWTNews) December 10, 2019

When level of commitment to the Catholic faith is a factor, the poll found active Catholics “are by far among President Trump’s most reliable supporters”:

They give him a 53% job approval rating (matched only by Evangelicals at 60%), and 43% of active Catholics state that they are sure to vote for him in 2020, again matched only by Evangelicals. These are strong numbers and a primary reason why 34% of all Catholics plan to vote again for him and another 19% say there is a good chance or consider it possible he will have their vote.

Less committed Catholics bring Trump’s overall job approval among the bloc down to 44 percent. When all types of “Catholics” are asked whom they would vote for if the presidential election were held today, Trump trails Joe Biden (39-52 percent), Elizabeth Warren (41-49 percent), Bernie Sanders (39-54 percent), and Pete Buttigieg (41-46 percent).

The poll suggests that while many will see in its results confirmation that American Catholics are now largely “unrecognizable from their fellow citizens,” there are still “many signs of hope in the findings.”

One such finding of the survey is that 70 percent of Catholics agree people have become less tolerant of religion in America. Additionally, 62 percent of all American Catholics say they believe Christian values should hold a more prominent place in American culture.

The poll was conducted with 2,055 registered voters, all adults 18 years of age and older who live in the United States. The sample included an oversample of 1,223 Catholic voters, who were contacted online in English and Spanish between Nov. 15-21, 2019. The poll notes it “has a credibility interval among registered voters of +/- 2.38 percentage points overall and among Catholic voters of +/- 2.66 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.”