The Catholic vote is still up for grabs in the upcoming midterm election, according to a new poll by RealClear Opinion Research and EWTN News.
Forty-four percent of likely Catholic voters said they would vote for the Republican candidate for Congress in their district, while 43 percent said they would support the Democratic candidate, the poll found. A large portion — 13 percent — remain undecided.
Sixty-eight percent of all likely Catholic voters said their faith is important when considering their vote for Congress, while just 32 percent said it is not important.
The Catholic vote can be a major decider in the upcoming election, given that more than one-in-five voters identifies as Catholic, according to RealClearPolitics.
Forty-two percent of respondents identified as Democrat while 38 percent identified as Republican. Another 20 percent considered themselves independent or unaffiliated with either party.
Yet 40 percent identified their political ideology as more conservative or lean conservative, compared to just 34 percent who identified as liberal or lean liberal.
While President Biden’s approval rating among Catholics is nearly ten points higher than among all voters, it still sits at a low 47 percent. Fifty-three percent of Catholics disapprove of the job he is doing.
By comparison, the RealClearPolitics average of opinion polls finds Biden’s approval rating among all voters at an abysmal 37.8 percent.
Biden’s support among Catholics is bolstered by Latino Catholics, 59 percent of whom approve of the job the president is doing. Biden wins support from just 36 percent of white Catholics.
Biden’s disapproval was strong among all Catholic voters, including those who attend mass at least weekly (55 percent disapproval), those who attend monthly (53 percent), and those who attend rarely if ever (52 percent).
Matthew Bunson, executive editor and Washington bureau chief of EWTN News, told reporters on Friday that it is striking for all three groups to register a similar level of disapproval, given that those who attend mass daily or weekly tend to be much less supportive of the Democratic Party.
“Those Catholics who are attending weekly also feel much more motivated to vote,” he said, adding that 88 percent of weekly mass attenders consider themselves to be highly likely voters in the upcoming midterms — eight points higher than those who attend monthly or never.
“That’s going to play out I think, importantly, in some of these swing districts in the battleground states,” he said.
Fifty-nine percent of all Catholics said the country is on the wrong track. Just 24 percent said it is headed in the right direction.
Meanwhile, Catholic voters were evenly split on support for former president Donald Trump with 49 percent holding a favorable view of the former president and 49 percent holding an unfavorable view.
The survey, which was conducted among 1,757 Catholic likely voters between June 15-23, also revealed inconsistent findings on abortion just before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24.
While 47 percent of respondents favored upholding Roe, 65 percent acknowledged that abortion conflicts with Catholic teaching.
However, just 18 percent of Catholic voters said abortion should be available to a woman at any point in her pregnancy. Thirty-two percent said abortion should be allowed only in cases of rape, incest or to save the live of the woman. Nine percent said it should never be permitted. In 2020, a similar poll found that 15 percent believed abortion should be available to a woman at any point during her pregnancy and 11 percent said it should never be permitted.
The survey also asked Catholic voters about gender issues and found that 67 percent of Catholics are opposed to biological boys using the girls school bathroom, locker room and shower. Sixty-seven percent said they are opposed to biological boys competing against biological girls on school sports teams, while 68 percent are opposed to school administrators hiding a student’s gender identity or new name from that student’s parents.
A majority of voters — 82 percent — said a candidate’s support for religious freedom would make them more likely to vote for them. Just 10 percent said they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate.