New poll shows DJT besting Harris in battleground states
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With just 18 days until the election, the Catholic vote – which has the power to decide the outcome – is leaning toward Donald Trump.
A new survey from the National Catholic Reporter (NCR), a left-leaning publication, finds Catholic voters in most of the battleground states favoring Trump over Kamala Harris by a 50%-45% margin.
The survey, the first focused exclusively on Catholics in swing states, targets Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
NCR finds Trump leads Harris in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Trump's widest advantage is in Wisconsin, 57%-39%. Harris leads in Nevada (50%-44%) and Pennsylvania (49%-48%).
Jim Ellis, a professional political consultant, agrees that the Catholic vote could well be the determining factor in the overall election result as he looks out on the political landscape. He told Souls and Liberty that the Trump team, however, "needs to improve upon his Catholic support in Pennsylvania, and particularly Hispanic Catholics in Nevada."
"Doing so may mean the difference between victory and defeat," he asserts.
The collective Catholic vote in these states comprises an important chunk of change for both candidates.
In Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada, Catholics make up roughly 25% of adults; while in Arizona and Michigan, almost 20% of adults are Catholic. In both North Carolina and Georgia, 9% of adults are Catholic, according to the Pew Research Center.
The NCR survey also finds that on racial lines, Trump has a firm lead over Harris with white Catholics scoring 56% to her 40%. She, however, holds a 67%-28% lead with Hispanic Catholics and a 77%-16% lead with Black, African-American, Caribbean and African Catholics considered collectively.
But many observers are puzzled by the support Catholic voters express for Harris – to whatever extent – given her record of discrimination and persecution against Catholics.
In a scathing essay published last week, former US ambassador to the Vatican, Callista Gingrich, wrote that Harris' anti-Catholic record should "alarm" Catholic voters. The sentiments expressed represent those of a growing number of Catholic leaders.
Gingrich let lose a litany of attacks Harris has leveled against Catholics for over a decade in her political positions in California and Washington. Included among these are the following policy examples:
As California's attorney general (2011-2017), Harris signed several amicus briefs opposing religious exemptions for Hobby Lobby, an American retail chain; and the Little Sisters of the Poor, a charitable organization serving the elderly poor in over 30 countries, including the US.
Although Gingrich does not refer to it directly, during this time, Harris launched an investigation into an anti-abortion group led by Catholic journalist David Daleiden whose undercover videos exposed Planned Parenthood's sale of aborted baby body parts. Many were stunned by Harris' reaction to the revelation by turning her prosecutorial sights onto Daleiden and not Planned Parenthood.
During her senatorial days (2017-2021), Harris co-sponsored the Equality Act, which the US Conference of Catholic bishops said could force doctors and hospitals to perform abortions they oppose.
In 2018, Harris grilled judicial nominees regarding their affiliation with the Knights of Columbus (K of C), a major Catholic fraternal organization and charity. She vehemently argued that the Knights' traditional pro-life and pro-marriage values constituted grounds to disqualify them from public office. (John F. Kennedy was a Knight of Columbus.)
The K of C has not forgotten this attack on its members and on religious freedom. In a recent essay published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the author noted, "Kamala Harris denounces Trump as an 'extremist.' Why hasn't she been held accountable for her past vicious campaign against the Knights of Columbus?"
Under Harris' watch as vice president (2021-present), a weaponized FBI has emerged targeting traditional Catholics. The FBI has characterized them as extremists and potential domestic terrorists. Gingrich points to a press release issued by the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government that stated, "[T]he FBI abused its counterterrorism tools to target Catholic Americans as potential domestic terrorists … and the FBI even proposed developing sources among the Catholic clergy and church leadership."
The thread running through all of her political history is her full-throated support of abortion through all nine months, as well as the willful death of babies who have survived failed abortions.
"Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law." – Catechism of the Catholic Church
Gingrich ended her essay explaining what a vote for Harris means for Catholics: "Together, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz make up the anti-Catholic ticket that would implement policies that are destructive for Catholics and all Americans."
Of the battleground states pollsters are perhaps eyeing most carefully is Pennsylvania with its 19 electoral votes. Harris is having a harder time in the Keystone State overall, and with Catholics, compared to her Scranton-born "Catholic" predecessor Joe Biden in 2020.
"As Democrats battle for [Pennsylvania] with Kamala Harris as the nominee, their chances of winning in the region or performing well enough there to carry the state are looking considerably dicier," founder of RealClear Pennsylvania, Charles F. McElwee, writes.
"It's not just the loss of Biden – an older, white, Catholic man with an affinity for the working class – from the top of the ticket that worries local Democrats. It's the cultural dissonance with Harris, a Californian and woman of color who has spearheaded the party's post-Dobbs abortion messaging. That profile makes her an awkward fit in a closely watched, economically hard-pressed working class region that's historically been a locus of anti-abortion activity," McElwee submitted.
The NCR poll targeted 1,172 Catholic voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It was conducted by Mercury Analytics in early October.
It mirrors findings from a national poll surveying more than 7,000 registered voters by the Pew Research Center in April. The Pew poll found Catholic voters favored Trump 55% to 43% to then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden. It also showed Hispanic Catholics more closely split with 49% for Biden and 47% for Trump.
Dr. Barbara Toth has a doctorate in rhetoric and composition from Bowling Green State University. She has taught at universities in the US, China and Saudi Arabia. Her work in setting up a writing center at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahmen University, an all-women's university in Riyadh, has been cited in American journals. Toth has published academic and non-academic articles and poems internationally.
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