For good reason, presidential polls have not received the airplay they might receive in quieter times with less pressing issues in the news, but there’s one poll that came out this week that should worry the Trump campaign.
White Catholics have been critical to Trump’s coalition. No Republican nominee since Reagan has been able to appeal to the sensibilities of disaffected White Catholics like Trump. His muddying of traditional Republican contempt for entitlement programs, his blunt, unpolished way of speaking, and his brand as a low-brow billionaire businessman are all appealing to many White Catholics. He won White Catholics handily in 2016 against an opponent who ignored the kind of outreach to this group that her husband was so good at, and it cost her and the country the opportunity to avoid a Trump presidency.
However, as president, Trump has not held to much of what appealed to White Catholics. He’s gone after health care, and his major domestic accomplishment is a tax cut package that favored the wealthy and corporations. Due to the pandemic, and his erratic leadership during it, he’s lost a strong economy (at least for now). He’s also dishonored Catholics as president.
(Note: Listen to my analysis on this and Trump’s St. John’s antics on the new episode of the Faith 2020 Podcast.)
When President Obama took office, one of his first faith-related appointments was putting the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ chief counsel on his faith-based advisory council. President Trump, not only doesn’t have an official faith-related advisory group; his unofficial group is basically exclusively made up of evangelicals (and a particular brand of evangelical at that). He and people around him have shown a willingness to disparage Catholics when they disagree with him, including the Pope. While the Biden campaign quotes from Pope Francis on their website, President Trump has called the Holy Father “disgraceful,” an unprecedented show of contempt for the leader of the Catholic Church from an American Head of State, unless you want to go back to the time of the “Know-Nothings” (spoiler: Catholics do not want to go back to the time of the “Know-Nothings.”)
Why has Trump not included Catholics in his White House as he has evangelicals? The answer is quite clear. Trump’s evangelical outreach is defined by the predatory capture and promotion of deinstitutionalized, unaccountable evangelicals: his White House’s evangelical outreach does not focus on organizations like the NAE and ERLC, institutions that have a mandate and accountability mechanisms, but rather Christian music artists, televangelists and personalities who run their own show. Leaders with sway among Catholics who have this little accountability are few and far between. Catholics are culturally, doctrinally and institutionally obligated to a set of teachings, i.e. Catholic social teaching, that evangelicals are not. Yes, you’ll find some Catholic leaders who favor one side of the political spectrum over the other, but any Catholic in public feels real pressure from sources of authority they themselves draw on to criticize aspects of both the Democratic and Republican platforms. Donald Trump does not accept criticism, and he quickly cuts off and often seeks to eviscerate those who do criticize him. Trump could not help himself but respond to Pope Francis’ criticism, because he does not respect authority, among other reasons (immaturity, impulsiveness, etc. etc.)
Catholics, especially White Catholics, tend to be less favorable toward political figures who seem to lean too heavily on faith, particularly for their own self-aggrandizement. John F. Kennedy’s commitment that his faith would not dictate his actions as president—which he was pressured to make clear because of evangelicals in one of the great ironies of American religious-political history—had a massive cultural effect in this country, and it is something Catholics remember even today. So while many commentators underestimate the appeal and seriousness with which some religious communities (including Democratic-leaning ones) take Trump’s crass approach to Church and State, my sense is that it’s something of a net-loss among White Catholics. Appealing to Catholic values, great. Drawing on religious institutions and rituals for your own political gain, not so great.
So I was not as surprised as some to see PRRI’s poll this week showing Trump at 37% favorability among White Catholics. Now, let’s be clear, this is just approval rating, not a head to head against Biden. Only 37% of White Catholics can have favorable views of Trump and 60% can vote for him in a head-to-head race. But I don’t think that’s what we’re looking at here.
Listen, if Trump loses the White Catholic vote, he loses the election. I’ll stake my credibility on that claim. I’ll also say that right now, the Biden campaign is on track to win the overall (including non-white) Catholic vote, which would put him in a very favorable place to win the election. A 37% approval rating among White Catholics for Trump suggests the Biden campaign has a higher ceiling than many might have thought. And Biden’s campaign has the candidate, the staff and the environment in which to perform better among white Catholics than any Democratic nominee this century. The question, of course, is whether the Biden campaign intends to make a real play and real investment for White Catholics, and whether they will be prepared for criticism on issues like abortion and religious freedom with real, substantive answers drawing from Biden’s own history.
Trump knows how important the Catholic vote is to his re-election effort. His campaign is investing big-time, and they will pull out all the stops. But it might be too little, too late. And the deck is not stacked in his favor like it has been for other Republicans in the past. In previous years, a Democratic nominee with their campaign HQ in Philadelphia would have had to deal with Archbishop Chaput, who was always willing to use his authority to press, criticize and undermine Democrats on an issue like abortion. But Archbishop Chaput is retired. Instead, it is President Trump who has faced criticism this week (legitimate and fair criticism, I would add) from the Archbishop presiding over his current residence (the D.C. one, not the Florida one), Archbishop Wilton Gregory. It is not Cardinal Dolan who is leading the USCCB today, as it was in 2012, but Archbishop Jose Gomez, one of the leading critics of Donald Trump’s policy of child separation at the border. Trump’s lack of willingness to make even rhetorical concessions on issues like immigration, poverty and the environment—unlike George W. Bush, for example—means that right-wing attempts to disqualify Biden in favor of Trump over an issue like abortion will be less plausible and convincing for many Catholics.
If the economy does not rebound heading into November, Trump will have few cards to play with White Catholics. In fact, it might be the case that the Democratic nominee has the greatest capacity to influence the outcome of the Catholic vote in any election in the 21st-century. Will Biden see the opportunity? Will he take it?
*Post edited to reflect PRRI survey results showed 37% favorability among White Catholics for Trump, not a 37% approval rating.
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