Days before the 2020 election, Joe Biden is showing a steady lead among Catholic voters, a demographic Trump has been counting on in important swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio.
A mid-October survey by EWTN and RealClearPolitics showed Trump with a 47 percent approval rating among Catholics, but only 40 percent support when respondents were asked who they would vote for if the election were held today. Ditto for a Marquette Law School poll released last week where Trump’s job approval rating (52 percent) among Wisconsin Catholics exceeded their support for his reelection (48 percent).
“If he loses, it’s because people who otherwise support him are just sick of it all,” said one adviser to the Trump campaign. “It’s because of voters who kind of like Trump, but ‘just can’t take this anymore.’ It’s because voters will choose a calm Thanksgiving dinner with their Democratic and Republican relatives over another policy victory or Supreme Court justice.”
While Catholic voters may be happy with the conservative Trump achievements and his agenda on abortion, school choice, and religious freedom, the polls tell a story of dissatisfaction about the pandemic response, the president’s personality, and the division he has sowed.
A POLITICO/Morning Consult survey found that only 29% of non-Protestant/Catholic voters agreed that Trump “keeps his promises,” and that Catholic voters trust Biden more on the economy, jobs, health care, the coronavirus, race relations and public safety suggesting the president’s opposition to church lockdowns, which he and his campaign have painted as a threat to religious freedom, and his law-and-order message have failed to attract Catholic voters.
Biden reached out to religious voters in a Christian Post op-ed published on Thursday discussing the principles that have guided his career — essentially “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Hispanic Catholics, who are more culturally conservative on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, are the kink in Biden’s Catholic support. Polls in Florida, Nevada and Arizona, show Biden and Trump in a dead heat for the Hispanic Catholic vote.
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