The Catholic vote
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Author Topic: The Catholic vote  (Read 3826 times)
Mr. Illini
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« on: January 10, 2014, 02:20:18 AM »

As I am sure most of you know, before the Democrats became so secular and before abortion was seen as a key issue, American Catholics were heavily settled into the Democratic column, culminating with Democrat Catholic John F. Kennedy.

This alliance has slowly crumbled away as the Democrats become increasingly secular and often even anti-religion. This has received increased attention in recent years with the Obamacare contraception mandate.

Where do you see the Catholic vote going heading forward? Will they re-establish their strong emphasis on social justice in politics an drift back toward the Democrats, remain a swing vote, or drift further to the right over sex issues?
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HAnnA MArin County
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« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2014, 07:48:08 AM »

Democrats are NOT anti-religion. To my knowledge, there's only one quasi-atheist Democrat serving in Congress right now (Kyrsten Sinema). Democrats simply believe that religion is a private matter and should not be unwillingly forced upon anyone, especially through the law as Republicans do.
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BRTD
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« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2014, 10:29:54 AM »

There is no "Catholic vote". Catholics do not vote in bloc and never really have actually. But the "Catholic vote" has gone to the winner of the popular vote in every election since at least 1972 and possibly since 1932 since it just acts a microcosm of the country.

There are also no specific issues that appeal to Catholics, Catholic socons care about the same issues as evangelicals and other socons, affluent economic right Catholics care about their tax rate just like everyone else who fits the profile and liberal Catholics have the sane concerns as liberal Protestants and secular types. There is also no issues all of those groups agree on.
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Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck
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« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2014, 10:51:48 AM »

As I am sure most of you know, before the Democrats became so secular and before abortion was seen as a key issue, American Catholics were heavily settled into the Democratic column, culminating with Democrat Catholic John F. Kennedy.

This alliance has slowly crumbled away as the Democrats become increasingly secular and often even anti-religion. This has received increased attention in recent years with the Obamacare contraception mandate.

Where do you see the Catholic vote going heading forward? Will they re-establish their strong emphasis on social justice in politics an drift back toward the Democrats, remain a swing vote, or drift further to the right over sex issues?

LOL!  I wish!

And BRTD is right.  Catholics don't vote as a bloc.  Massachusetts Catholics lean Democratic and Southern Catholics lean Republican. 
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Gass3268
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« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2014, 11:40:31 AM »
« Edited: January 10, 2014, 12:27:50 PM by Senator Gass3268 »

Obama won the Catholic vote both times. He can thank Hispanics for that!

http://www.pewforum.org/2012/11/07/how-the-faithful-voted-2012-preliminary-exit-poll-analysis/#rr
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Mr. Illini
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« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2014, 12:25:17 PM »

There is no "Catholic vote". Catholics do not vote in bloc and never really have actually. But the "Catholic vote" has gone to the winner of the popular vote in every election since at least 1972 and possibly since 1932 since it just acts a microcosm of the country.

There are also no specific issues that appeal to Catholics, Catholic socons care about the same issues as evangelicals and other socons, affluent economic right Catholics care about their tax rate just like everyone else who fits the profile and liberal Catholics have the sane concerns as liberal Protestants and secular types. There is also no issues all of those groups agree on.

I would argue that at one time, they did. For many years preceding and just after JFK, Catholics identified pretty uniformly with the Democrats. This is because 1) sex issues were not big issues during that time 2) they identified with the Democrats on social justice and civil rights issues.

Whether you all like it or not, the Democrats have become a lot more secular, at least Democratic pundits (candidates can't really afford to do so in most areas). They demonize religion constantly because they see all religious people as evangelical southern fundamentalists, a profile which Catholics differ greatly from but are still targeted as thanks to liberals refusal to differentiate.
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BRTD
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« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2014, 12:28:20 PM »

If I wasn't on my phone i could post maps disproving that any Catholic bloc ever existed but that'll have to wait until I'm off work.

Also LOL@the idea Catholics have ever been homogenous on sex or "social justice" issues.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2014, 02:06:45 PM »

First of all, Catholics as a whole lean Democratic in elections, but a lot of that is because of the rather lopsided preference for Democrats of the Latino population (along with the relatively small but almost wholly Democratic population of black Catholics). When you look at white, non-Hispanic Catholics as an isolated group, they are far closer to 50/50 than the broader Catholic population-perhaps even a (slightly) lean Republican demographic at this point.

Now, white Catholics have a pretty massive gender gap in elections, IIRC (larger than the average). That is to say, a substantially greater percentage of white male Catholics vote Republican than of white female Catholics.

Furthermore, it is probably true that the more "serious" or "devout" white Catholics in terms of religious practice are considerably more Republican (or likely to vote Republican) these days than many of the "cafeteria" Catholics.  However, here's the thing...at almost every level of society, women are more religious (in both belief and practice) than men, on average.

So even though on average, it is true that devout Catholics are more Republican than less devout Catholics, Catholic men are more Republican than Catholic women, and white Catholics are more Republican than Latino Catholics, it is also true that Latino Catholics are more devout (on average) than white Catholics and that Catholic women are more devout than Catholic men (on average).

I wonder how much things like economic class, income, educational attainment, region of the country (compare Massachusetts or Rhode Island Catholics to Louisiana or Missouri Catholics, for example...)  urban vs rural divide, etc. impact these other demographics that have  previously been described....

TJ, BRTD, others...any comments? Tongue

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Mr. Illini
liberty142
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« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2014, 04:20:02 PM »

Louisiana and Missouri Catholics tend to live in St. Louis and New Orleans, very Democratic voting areas. That is why I think the "New England Catholics vote this was and southern Catholics vote this way" explanation is overrated.
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Miles
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« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2014, 04:48:08 PM »

Louisiana and Missouri Catholics tend to live in St. Louis and New Orleans, very Democratic voting areas. That is why I think the "New England Catholics vote this was and southern Catholics vote this way" explanation is overrated.

And Acadiana, which has been trending R Presidentially since 1992.
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BRTD
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« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2014, 11:29:25 PM »

First of all the white Catholic vote is quite a bit stronger than simply "Lean R" and certainly not "slightly lean R":



The Obama-Romney numbers though aren't so as important as the trend. The reason for this shouldn't be overthought though, it's probably simply due to the fact that white youngs are far less likely than white olds to be Catholic, and the white youngs who are Catholic are likely to be TJ/Phil type socons. So basically white Catholic Democrats are dying off and they aren't being replaced because their offspring are ditching the church. I'd be willing to bet the area I live in (kind of the epitome of white liberal youngs) has a significantly higher LGBT population than it does white Catholics, and it's not just here, find any comparable area in any major city and you'd have the same. It has nothing to do with "secular Democrats" (unless you're talking about the former Catholics who are Democrats) and no one votes Republican solely because of Bill Maher.

Now here's some maps of 1960. Let me preface by saying that I'll concede there certainly was more bloc voting amongst Catholics this year for obvious reasons than most, but the only other year you can find any such bloc voting is 1928. JFK is believed to have received around 72% of the Catholic vote. That still leaves some obvious areas where such a swing didn't occur:



Long Island? Staten Island?



The most heavily Republican parts of here have also been the most Catholic (which is really just saying they don't have many Scandinavians.) That applies here as well, though admittedly not in Emmons County.



True JFK didn't do as well in the rural west as modern day Democrats do, but he didn't do that well in the rural east, which is more German and Catholic either. He also barely won Brown county too.



The most Catholic non-Hispanic part of the state also clearly sticks out as the most Republican. Sure Texas Germans have always been Republican, but that proves that other factors were at play here, not simply being Catholic (also worth nothing LBJ's home state advantage and being from the region next election clearly trumped JFK's Catholicism in a factor of what was more important for a swing.)

And if any of these areas started swinging Democratic, it wasn't until the 90s. When social issues took more prominence.

And these areas never swing together. Some got more D, some got more R as a general trend. So Catholic bloc voting only existed at any point if there was a Catholic candidate, and now that doesn't matter at all (as proven by the lack of any in 2004). Catholic bloc voting never really did exist and most certainly doesn't now. And the only trend I can see is the "Catholic vote" basically ending up just correlating with the Hispanic vote with how insanely bleeding the church is of white youngs. You'll probably just end up with it being Hispanics + white socons, so basically like the Hispanic vote but more Republican.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #11 on: January 11, 2014, 07:34:58 AM »



The most Catholic non-Hispanic part of the state also clearly sticks out as the most Republican. Sure Texas Germans have always been Republican, but that proves that other factors were at play here, not simply being Catholic (also worth nothing LBJ's home state advantage and being from the region next election clearly trumped JFK's Catholicism in a factor of what was more important for a swing.)
German Texans were not strongly Catholic.  Much of the migration to Texas was through colonization, and depending on where the emigrants came from determined whether they were Lutheran or Catholic.
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Indy Texas
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« Reply #12 on: January 11, 2014, 05:29:49 PM »



The most Catholic non-Hispanic part of the state also clearly sticks out as the most Republican. Sure Texas Germans have always been Republican, but that proves that other factors were at play here, not simply being Catholic (also worth nothing LBJ's home state advantage and being from the region next election clearly trumped JFK's Catholicism in a factor of what was more important for a swing.)
German Texans were not strongly Catholic.  Much of the migration to Texas was through colonization, and depending on where the emigrants came from determined whether they were Lutheran or Catholic.

Generally, the "German Counties" to the north of San Antonio tended to be settled by Catholic Germans (and the occasional Catholic Czech/Bohemian) and the "German Counties" along the Coastal Plain between Houston and Corpus Christi tended to be settled by Lutheran Germans. But neither area was monolithically one religion or the other.
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TDAS04
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« Reply #13 on: January 11, 2014, 06:12:50 PM »
« Edited: January 11, 2014, 06:14:53 PM by TDAS04 »

Catholics were mostly Democratic as a whole until the late 1900s, but there were a few exceptions:

*Before the New Deal, Italians and French Canadians were considerably more Republican than the Irish.

*During New Mexico's earliest elections as a state, the Hispanics appear to have been mostly Republican, and the Anglos mainly Democratic (NM Anglos were virtually Texans).

*An early Catholic group that possibly voted GOP during the 1800s might have been German Catholics in Missouri and Texas.  Germans in those states were pro-Union during the Civil War, (most of Lincoln's 1860 Missouri votes came from German immigrants).  However, I doubt that German Catholics provided the same support to the GOP that German Protestants did.

To answer the OP, Catholics will probably continue to vote fairly similar to the national average, as they have generally done since the 1970s.
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patrick1
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« Reply #14 on: January 11, 2014, 07:54:24 PM »


Now here's some maps of 1960. Let me preface by saying that I'll concede there certainly was more bloc voting amongst Catholics this year for obvious reasons than most, but the only other year you can find any such bloc voting is 1928. JFK is believed to have received around 72% of the Catholic vote. That still leaves some obvious areas where such a swing didn't occur:



Long Island? Staten Island?



Long Island and Staten Island were not as Catholic in 1960 as they are now. (LI was around 33% in 1960 and 50% by 1990.) The exodus of "white ethnics" had started but was still gathering steam.  Once in the suburbs, the Catholics slowly became  more Republican. This was caused by a number of factors being race based politics, the reaction to Vietnam protesters, a staunchly anti-communist church, the abortion issue and just an incorporation into the existing politics of the area.

Now I concede that there is not any meaningful Catholic vote and the one that did exist was by no means monolithic. Irish tended more Democratic than Germans for instance. Middle Class Catholics were also much more likely to trend toward Republicans. And stretching back it was swayable by candidate.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #15 on: January 12, 2014, 02:32:36 PM »



The most Catholic non-Hispanic part of the state also clearly sticks out as the most Republican. Sure Texas Germans have always been Republican, but that proves that other factors were at play here, not simply being Catholic (also worth nothing LBJ's home state advantage and being from the region next election clearly trumped JFK's Catholicism in a factor of what was more important for a swing.)
German Texans were not strongly Catholic.  Much of the migration to Texas was through colonization, and depending on where the emigrants came from determined whether they were Lutheran or Catholic.

Generally, the "German Counties" to the north of San Antonio tended to be settled by Catholic Germans (and the occasional Catholic Czech/Bohemian) and the "German Counties" along the Coastal Plain between Houston and Corpus Christi tended to be settled by Lutheran Germans. But neither area was monolithically one religion or the other.
Can you provide a source for this claim?
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BRTD
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« Reply #16 on: January 12, 2014, 03:17:20 PM »

I'd be rather surprised if the Texas Germans didn't convert and intermarry as much as Midwestern Germans did.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #17 on: January 15, 2014, 04:40:40 AM »

I'd be rather surprised if the Texas Germans didn't convert and intermarry as much as Midwestern Germans did.
The only specific references I could find of German Catholic communities were of Muenster and Marienfeld (now Stanton), which are distinctly outside the German Belt.  While the Hill Country was more highly concentrated, most German immigration was in the San Antonio-Austin-Houston triangle (the Hill Country is not particularly good farming area).   Some of the earliest immigration to the Hill Country (during the Republic period) was of malcontents, including freethinkers, that the German princes were trying to get rid of.  Later immigrants were more economically motivated.  Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels was Lutheran, but was charged with founding Lutheran and Catholic churches in New Braunfels.

The only particular group that is noted as having a tradition of immigration for religion freedom is the Wends (around Serbin), and they are Lutheran (Missouri Synod).

If you look at the 1960 map, Lavaca County stands out in its Kennedy support.  But Lavaca County has a very high percentage of Czechs, who in Texas are mostly Moravian and Catholic, rather than the more typically Bohemian groups of the Midwest.

The areas north of San Antonio, including both the Hill Country and areas to the northeast (Comal, Guadeloupe) voted Republican because they were German, not because they were Catholic.  The areas further east voted Democratic because they were more like the rest of Texas.

I doubt that there was that much intermarriage by 1960, particularly in rural areas, unless there were relatively few Catholics and no parish church.  But the absence of the Catholics would preclude much intermarriage in absolute terms, even if relatively more Catholics intermarried.

Incidentally, it is 31 miles between Kenedy and Nixon in Texas.
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Illiniwek
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« Reply #18 on: January 17, 2014, 01:46:32 AM »

There are three Catholic blocks. The Hispanic bloc and the ChrEaster (non-church going, white) bloc support Democrats and the church going whites support Republicans. The Hispanic bloc is more socially conservative, but because Republicans cannot embrace Hispanics, they will continue to be Democrats. Non-church goers are not passionate about Catholic sexuality issues and focus more on social justice, while white church goers are generally quite passionate about sexuality issues (at least until Pope Francis' tone change has more time to settle in. I am a Catholic who went to Catholic high school, lived in a Catholic dorm, and am very involved in the Knights of Columbus, and its fool proof that everyone that I know regularly attends church voted for Romney, and everyone who don't voted for Obama (the only exception being me (I attend church, voted for Johnson, and supported Obama vs. Romney)).
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