Harris-Trump race splits US Catholics along ethnic lines, polls find. What results show
Originally published September 10, 2024 for the Miami Herald
A new poll finds former President Donald Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris among U.S. Catholics just two months before Election Day — with a major divide along whites and Hispanics within the group.
The latest Pew Research Center poll, released Sept. 9, finds that 52% of registered voters who identify as Catholic say they support Trump, while 47% say they back Harris.
Catholic voters — who experts refer to as a “major swing voting group” in presidential elections — make up one of the largest religious groups in the country, with roughly 52 million adults describing themselves as Catholic nationwide, according to a Pew Research Center study.
The poll shows 61% of white Catholics say they would vote for Trump if the election were held today and 38% say they would vote for Harris. But for Hispanic Catholics, the results are flipped, with 65% of respondents saying they would vote for Harris and 34% saying they would support Trump.
According to the poll, “Harris currently garners more support from Black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics than Biden did in April, when 77% of Black Protestants and 49% of Hispanic Catholics backed him.”
The poll, conducted between Aug. 26 and Sept. 2, sampled more than 8,000 registered voters and has a margin of error of 1.4 percentage points. This is the first poll by the research center that excludes third-party candidates when asking about voters’ preferences between Harris and Trump.
A different poll, conducted by RealClear Opinion Research and EWTN, found Harris having a slight advantage over Trump. That poll, conducted between Aug. 28-30, showed 50% of Catholic voters with plans to support Harris and 43% of Catholic voters planning to vote for Trump.
A divide among U.S. Catholics
Hispanic Catholics are the second-largest demographic group among U.S. Catholics, making up about one-third of the religious group, according to a Pew Research Center study. However, most U.S. Catholics are white and tend to have unique social and political habits when compared to the other demographic groups, according to the study.
A 2020 Public Religion Research Institute study found that Hispanic Catholics are more likely to identify as Democrats than white Catholics.
The top three issues Hispanic Catholics identify as critical are health care, terrorism and climate change, while the top three issues for white Catholics are terrorism, health care and immigration, according to the study.
In the 2020 election, white Catholics favored Trump over Biden by a 15-point margin, while Hispanic Catholics backed Biden over Trump by 35 points, according to the research center.
Trump focuses on Catholics
Last week, the Trump campaign launched Catholics for Trump, a coalition highlighting the former president’s policy efforts that align with Catholic ideals. A few days later, on Sept. 8, the former president tweeted a virtual birthday card to the Virgin Mary. The post on X, formerly Twitter, was met with mixed reactions.
“The desperation is palpable and beyond embarrassing. This is Our Lady of Guadalupe,” commented one person. “The saddest part is that white American Catholics are going to fall for this.”
“His gesture shows respect for faith and unity,” commented another user.
According to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary has appeared in different places and is known by different titles relative to those places. Guadalupe is a name given to an indigenous manifestation of the Virgin Mary when she appeared in Mexico.
While Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary’s birthday on Sept. 8, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated Dec. 12.
