Exit polls from Election Day reveal that Donald Trump pulled off a landslide with Catholic voters, earning a 15-point margin over his opponent, the widest edge a Republican has seen with Catholics in decades. According to data from both Washington Post and NBC exit polls, Trump secured 56% of the Catholic vote nationally, leaving Kamala Harris far behind with 41%. In the critical swing states, the trend held firm, with Catholic voters favoring Trump over Harris by that same 15-point gap. It seems Trump’s approach resonated with Catholics, while Harris’s strategy, if it can even be called that, seemed to only push them away.
Throughout the campaign, Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, actively courted Catholic voters. Meanwhile, Harris appeared to go out of her way to alienate this key demographic, a choice that seemed to backfire spectacularly on Election Day. Trump, aware of her diminishing appeal among Catholics, predicted her loss of this demographic, citing her slipping numbers just before the election. And he wasn’t wrong: the Catholic vote has long been a reliable barometer for predicting who will land in the White House. The numbers were clearly on Trump’s side this year, just as they were in 2016 when he took 52% of the Catholic vote against Hillary Clinton’s 42%. The same pattern held in 2020 when Biden edged out Trump among Catholics by 51% to 47% and ultimately won.
Trump was quick to highlight Harris’s support for policies that he argued were an affront to Catholic values, particularly her stance on late-term abortion. This position, he contended, was out of touch with most Americans, a claim that he reiterated on social media, warning that “Christians around the world will not be safe” under a Harris presidency. In contrast, he vowed to defend persecuted Christians globally and pledged to bring justice to those suffering from violence and ethnic cleansing.
Former U.S. Ambassador Callista Gingrich weighed in as well, labeling Harris as the “anti-Catholic candidate” in the race. Her absence from the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a staple event for presidential candidates with deep ties to the Catholic community, didn’t go unnoticed either. Breaking a longstanding tradition, Harris became the first presidential candidate since Walter Mondale in 1984 to skip the event in person, opting instead for a pre-recorded message. This move, to many, was just the latest in a series of perceived snubs toward Catholics.
Harris’s history with the Catholic community has been rocky, to say the least. While serving as a senator, her aggressive questioning of Catholic judicial nominees raised eyebrows, especially when she zeroed in on their membership in the Knights of Columbus, a charitable organization that had even counted President John F. Kennedy among its members. Her actions left many Catholics feeling that their faith was being targeted, a sentiment that only seemed to grow stronger as Harris took on more prominent national roles.
As CatholicVote.org’s president noted in the wake of Trump’s victory, Catholic voters emerged as a decisive force in the outcome, with exit polls suggesting that Trump’s 14-point lead among Catholics may be one of the largest margins in a presidential race in recent memory. The organization praised Trump and Vance for addressing the issues that Catholics cared most about, from tackling inflation to bringing a sense of order to the border chaos.
The Trump and Harris divide wasn’t just about policy; it underscored a fundamental difference in their views on religion’s role in American life. According to CatholicVote.org, Harris’s approach was bluntly dismissive, essentially telling Christians they weren’t welcome at her events and refusing to offer any faith-based accommodations on contentious issues like abortion. In the end, this approach may have helped seal her fate, and Trump’s outreach to Catholics paid off in a big way, tipping a key demographic in his favor and playing a pivotal role in his path back to the presidency.
