Pew poll: Narrow majority of US Catholics voted for Trump in November

CNA staff, September 11, 2024 / 2:30 p.m.

A new Pew Research Center poll shows that a narrow majority of U.S. Catholics plan to vote for former President Donald Trump in November, putting Trump neck and neck in the overall poll of voters as the campaign enters its final week.

The poll, released Monday, found that “religious groups in the U.S. that traditionally lean Republican support former President Donald Trump by a wide margin,” while groups that historically supported Democrats “mostly support Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Fifty-two percent of Catholics said they would support Trump in the race, while 47 percent said they would prefer Harris.

Trump's support rose to 61% among white Catholics, while Harris garnered a respectable 65% among Hispanic Catholics.

According to an earlier Pew poll from February, 42 percent of Catholics had a positive opinion of Trump, compared to 57 percent who had an unfavorable opinion.

In contrast to Pew's findings this week, an EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll released last week found Harris ahead of Trump among Catholic voters overall, with 50 percent of respondents supporting Harris and 42 percent supporting Trump.

In that poll, the vice president also led Trump among African-American Catholic voters, 82% to 12%, and among Asian Catholic voters, 58% to 35%. Among non-Hispanic white Catholic voters, Trump led Trump, 52% to 42%.

The EWTN/RealClear poll, conducted August 28-30, surveyed 1,000 Catholics and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points. The Pew poll, conducted August 26-September 2, surveyed a total of 9,720 voters and had a margin of error of about 1.5 percentage points.

In this week's Pew poll, meanwhile, Trump received a majority of white Protestants, while large majorities of atheists and agnostics support Harris, as do a whopping 86 percent of black Protestants.

Overall, this week's Pew poll showed a neck-and-neck race between the two candidates: 49 percent of respondents support Trump and 49 percent support Harris.

Pew said it found consensus on key campaign issues among broad religious groups, finding, for example, that “at least six in 10 registered voters in every religious group say the economy will play a major role in their voting decision.”

And “half or more in almost every religious group say the same about health care, Supreme Court appointments and foreign policy.”