The Catholic voting gap was the largest in decades, polls show. Whom did they choose?

Originally published November 6, 2024 for the Miami Herald

As ballots were counted late into the evening on Tuesday, Nov. 5, U.S. Catholics — a group experts see as “sharply divided by party” — broke for former President Donald Trump by a historically large margin nationwide, exit polls revealed.

Fifty-eight percent of U.S. Catholics favored Trump, compared to 40% who supported Vice President Kamala Harris, according to exit polls from NBC News, The Washington Post and CNN. The 18-point margin represents the largest voting gap among the group in decades.

According to the NBC News poll of key states, the divide was even more pronounced among white Catholics, who favored Trump 60% compared to 37% for Harris. In the 2020 election, 57% supported President Joe Biden, compared to 42% for Trump, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center study.

However, a majority of Catholic voters overall voted for Biden in the 2020 election, according to Gallup.

Margaret Thompson, associate professor of history and political science at Syracuse University, told McClatchy News although the religious group still tends to mirror the general public, it has changed a lot over the past two decades, growing smaller and more ethnically diverse.

She said what shocked her was that the gap among Catholics was so much bigger than the general public.

“One thing we do know is that the Latino vote broke for Trump to a much greater extent than it has for any Republican,” she said. “So the question is, does that add significantly to the Catholic margin?”

Cristina Traina, professor of Christian theology and ethics at Fordham University, told McClatchy News in a phone interview that experts used to be able to assume how the majority of Catholics would vote.

“You could pretty much assume that 80% to 90% of Catholics were going to vote a particular way because of their Catholic identity and the priorities that the Catholic church and they as Catholics had,” Traina said. “That’s no longer true. Catholics are across the spectrum.”

According to the exit polls, Trump outperformed earlier predictions of how the religious group would vote. A Pew Research Center study published two months before Election Day found Trump leading Harris by just five percentage points among the group.

“It is surprising to me, especially given that apparently 61% of Catholics would like abortion to be legal in many, if not all cases,” Traina said. “Clearly there’s not an abortion motivation to vote for Trump this year.”

What issues were most important to US Catholics?

Traina said she thinks several people who were on the fence about their vote broke for Trump because of greater confidence in him on issues such as immigration and the economy — mirroring top issues for voters nationally, according to an AP VoteCast survey.

“Catholics are pretty reflective of society at large and of their demographic groups,” Traina said.

The survey also found that Catholics picked Trump as a better fit to handle all issues except abortion and climate change.

How did other religious groups vote?

The NBC News exit poll found that 72% of Protestants — the largest of the religious groups — voted for Trump, compared to 26% for Harris.

However, a majority of Jewish voters, “nones” — people who identify as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” — and others all voted for Harris, according to the poll.