Americans spent months praying over President-elect Donald Trump in hopes he would take back the White House— and it worked; he swept the nation, outperforming his 2016 numbers and critical demographics that Democrats swore Vice President Kamala Harris would win.
Not only did he gain significant momentum among black voters, but he also took the Catholic vote— a group that Harris failed to relate to, given her anti-Christian views and respect toward the religion.
Catholics voted for the President-elect over VP Harris by a margin of 56% to 41%. pic.twitter.com/8tV5NoneZg
— Father V (@father_rmv) November 6, 2024
A Washington Post exit poll found that Trump won the national Catholic vote on Election Day by 56 percent to 41 percent for Harris. Ten key swing states favored the future 47th president by a 15-point margin.
This is a significant win for Trump among the bellwether group compared to 2020. The publication’s 2020 exit polls found that Trump only had a five-point lead over President Joe Biden, 52 to 47 percent—or a staggering ten-point swing in favor of the former president from Election Day four years ago to now.
Exit poll shows Trump won the Catholic vote by a wide margin (56%), improving over his 2016 win. pic.twitter.com/1b8jEswW2f
— Jake (@s_decatur) November 6, 2024
Harris’ abortion stance seemed to be the leading reason she lost a staggering amount of Catholic votes— that and her constant mocking of the religion and snubbing of the AI Smith dinner, which benefits Catholic charities.
By state, Trump won the Catholic vote by significant numbers.
In Pennsylvania, where Trump defeated Harris in a landslide, he won the Catholic vote by 14 points.
In Michigan, he won 20 points, while he won 16 percentage points in Wisconsin, and in Florida, Trump won 29 points.
Trump also won 90 percent of voters who believe abortion should be banned in all or most cases, while Harris only won nine percent of voters who held that same view.
The Democratic Party’s Catholic vote has declined for some time.
In 2016, then-presidential candidate Trump received 52 percent of the vote, while twice-failed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received just 42 percent.
CatholicVote.org president Brian Burch called Trump’s historic win among the group “shocking.”
“[This] could prove to be the largest margin among Catholics in a presidential race in decades. Catholics proved again to be a critical voting bloc that cannot be ignored,” he said. “Trump and Vance won Catholics by a massive margin by promising to improve the lives of those most impacted by inflation, and by promising to bring about a humane and orderly solution to the chaos at the border. Further, Trump and Harris differed sharply over the role of religion in America, with Harris sealing her fate by telling Christians they didn’t belong at her rallies, before declaring there would be no accommodations for people of faith on abortion. Harris exposed the fact that the Democratic Party has a big Catholic problem.”