Taking Stock of the Catholic Votes

By Steve Waldman - Wall Street Journal
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - Web Link
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April 23, 2008

Debates will rage for days about whether Hillary Clinton won by enough in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary to truly threaten Barack Obama’s candidacy, but one thing is clear already: Sen. Obama continues to struggle among Catholics.

Sen. Clinton trounced Sen. Obama 69% to 31% among Catholic voters, according to exit polls. Ominously, this pattern appears in polls pitting Sen. Obama against Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. Last month’s NBC/Wall Street Journal poll had Sen. Obama beating Sen. McCain 47% to 44% but losing among Catholics 48% to 44%.

Remember, President Bush’s victory in 2004 had as much to do with his winning the Catholic vote as the much-discussed evangelical Christian vote. Mr. Bush beat Sen. John Kerry among Catholics 52% to 46%, even though Al Gore had beaten Bush 50% to 46% in 2000. If the Catholic Mr. Kerry had merely done as well among Catholics as the Baptist Mr. Gore, he probably would have won the presidency.

The problem with understanding the Catholic vote is the role of, well, Catholicism. Since the Catholic Church is antiabortion, many assume that abortion must be a key factor in winning Catholic voters. But most Catholics support some abortion rights and regularly vote for pro-choice candidates. The Catholic Church opposed the Iraq war and yet in 2004 Catholics voted for Bush and supported the war.

In fact, it may be that when the more-sophisticated number-crunching has been completed, we’ll find out that Sen. Obama’s problems with Catholics may turn out to have been just a problem with white, working-class seniors, who in Pennsylvania happened to be Catholic.

With that broad caveat, there are a few key things to understand about the Catholic vote going forward:

There are two Catholic votes, not one. Hispanics now represent one-third of Catholics — and 44% of Catholics under age 39, according to the Pew Religion Forum. In the last election, Hispanic Catholics stuck with the Democrats (Mr. Bush did better among Hispanic by winning protestant evangelical Hispanics). This means that in addition to doing better among white Catholics than Mr. Kerry did, the Democrats have the chance to win back the overall Catholic vote by improving on their pull with Hispanics.