I think the accelerated collapse of the Roman Catholic Church is hurting the GOP with social issues, thus PA and OH are increasingly more Dem.
Oh my... this is interesting on so many levels.
PA and OH aren't increasingly Dem. If anything OH has become more Republican over the last ten years (right now it's more Dem than it would otherwise be because the state GOP decided to tick off the unions, not because of social issues). PA may have become increasingly Dem in your lifetime, but it hasn't really been a swing state in a long time. If you're expecting the rust belt Catholic areas to suddenly become Republican bastions, that's not about to happen. You have to understand the union/protectionist mentality of these towns to get it. The GOP can make inroads into the blue collar Catholic vote, but will never win it since the workers are mostly yearning for a byegone era of economics that isn't coming back and isn't about to be provided by the GOP in particular. You will see some Republican trend in places like the Youngstown metro area or Monroe, Michigan that fit this bill well, but it would take at least a generation for those areas to become solidly Republican if everything else in the nation remained the same.
The Catholic Church does have a whole lot of problems and certainly isn't on the rise right now, but also bear in mind its members started off very, very Democratic to begin with. Most of the social fragmentation within didn't happen recently; it happened during the 1960s "spirit of Vatican II" era and is just now becoming increasingly obvious. The Catholic Church is going to slowly shrink for a while still, especially in the Midwest, and slowly become more conservative as people either fall inline with the bishops or leave altogether. And to be entirely honest, most of the recent social issues polling out of the rust belt hasn't been all that bad for the GOP to begin with.
If the Catholic Church was in better condition across the rust belt, the GOP would definitely be in better shape, but it's a lot more complicated than that.
Is the Catholic church really shrinking that much? It probably is in the Midwest and the Northeast to a certain extent but certainly not in the West. And I think it's expanding in the South as well, even beyond Texas. Are Hispanics also leaving the church now, because if not I think the Catholic church will remain strong, but with different demographics.
