Does hearing about the "Catholic vote" annoy you?

[minionofmidas]

He is risen!

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Yes. Not only is there no unified Catholic voting bloc, there never really has been one.

72% of Catholics (then mostly white), voted for JFK.

Just yesterday, I was wondering what the numbers were during that race. Thanks!

I actually think it was 83% of Catholics who voted for JFK.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I suspect that the exact number is impossible to ascertain and that any figures bandied around will come from surveys. There are serious, serious, serious problems with surveys into voting patterns in general, and additional problems with the sort of social surveys done in the 1950s and 1960s...

[Badger]

It doesn't "annoy" me per se. Talking heads like to say that "white Catholics" are an important swing vote bloc, but I think that's too broad as well.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Looking at the 1960 map, there's no way I can see 83% of Catholics for JFK. Even 72% is a bit of a stretch, since in a lot of counties that would mean Nixon got a comparable percentage of non-Catholics, not entirely unfeasible, but the only way this could happen if it lots of mostly white Protestant counties didn't swing much, while white Protestants in counties that also had a large Catholic population swung heavily against JFK.

Either way if either figure is true JFK's Catholicism obviously helped a lot more than it hurt, which I do believe even if skeptical of those figures.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Something realized today is that this would be a good county to look at: Dubuque, Iowa. It's commonly known as having one of the largest white Catholic populations in the country, at about 80%. It voted:

Kennedy 63.30%
Nixon 36.64%

So for 83%, just about all non-Catholics in the county would've had to have voted for Nixon. For 72%, that would be about 70% for Nixon, maybe not entirely unfeasible, but consider that even in Sioux County of all places Kennedy broke 20% (way better than any modern Democrat can expect). Of course the 72% figure is possible if you consider that in places like South Texas the numbers for Kennedy were much higher...but that just kind of underscores the point that there was no Catholic voting bloc even in 1960.

In the end though Al is definitely right, if I had to estimate based on the 1960 map I'd say mid to high 60s though.

[memphis]

Something realized today is that this would be a good county to look at: Dubuque, Iowa. It's commonly known as having one of the largest white Catholic populations in the country, at about 80%. It voted:

Kennedy 63.30%
Nixon 36.64%

So for 83%, just about all non-Catholics in the county would've had to have voted for Nixon. For 72%, that would be about 70% for Nixon, maybe not entirely unfeasible, but consider that even in Sioux County of all places Kennedy broke 20% (way better than any modern Democrat can expect). Of course the 72% figure is possible if you consider that in places like South Texas the numbers for Kennedy were much higher...but that just kind of underscores the point that there was no Catholic voting bloc even in 1960.

In the end though Al is definitely right, if I had to estimate based on the 1960 map I'd say mid to high 60s though.

You would have to demonstrate that the Catholic population in Dubuque was representative of the country as a whole. Otherwise, what you've done is the equivalent of looking at Vermont's results in the 2008 election, and determining that whites voted overwhelmingly for Obama because Vermont is one of the whitest states in the country.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Something realized today is that this would be a good county to look at: Dubuque, Iowa. It's commonly known as having one of the largest white Catholic populations in the country, at about 80%. It voted:

Kennedy 63.30%
Nixon 36.64%

So for 83%, just about all non-Catholics in the county would've had to have voted for Nixon. For 72%, that would be about 70% for Nixon, maybe not entirely unfeasible, but consider that even in Sioux County of all places Kennedy broke 20% (way better than any modern Democrat can expect). Of course the 72% figure is possible if you consider that in places like South Texas the numbers for Kennedy were much higher...but that just kind of underscores the point that there was no Catholic voting bloc even in 1960.

In the end though Al is definitely right, if I had to estimate based on the 1960 map I'd say mid to high 60s though.

You would have to demonstrate that the Catholic population in Dubuque was representative of the country as a whole. Otherwise, what you've done is the equivalent of looking at Vermont's results in the 2008 election, and determining that whites voted overwhelmingly for Obama because Vermont is one of the whitest states in the country.

That's my point though, there wasn't a true voting bloc even in 1960.

Speaking of all this it's a bit funny that for someone who "hates Catholic" I myself would've obviously voted for Kennedy. In fact I would've voted for every pre-Paul Ryan major party ticket with a Catholic on it (though in the case of Al Smith this was mostly just out of opposing Prohibition, as his post-governorship life showed he was a pretty awful guy.)

[DC Al Fine]

Catholic vote can be roughly divided into 3 groups:

1) Hispanics - Solid Democrats
2) White, attend mass less than weekly - Lean democrat
3) White, attend mass weekly or more - Republican