PITTSBURGH (AP) — Nationally, Catholic voters were a crucial constituency in the recent presidential election. This year, they are expected to make up at least a quarter of voters in the vital state of Pennsylvania – and thus play a crucial role in deciding the overall outcome.
There was an up and down effect in the state. Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by around 44,000 votes; Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020 by 80,000 votes.
John Fea, a history professor at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, said he believes Biden – an Irish-American Catholic and regular Mass attendee – is associated with some Catholics as one of their own.
“I don’t think most working-class Catholics thought Biden was a perfect candidate, but he was one of them,” said Fea, who studies the interaction of religion and politics.
Now Trump, a non-denominational Christian, is back at the top of the Republican ticket, with JD Vance – a Catholic – as his running mate.
The Democrats have a ticket without a Catholic, led by Kamala Harris, who is of Black and South Asian descent and comes from a Baptist tradition with a robust focus on social justice, and her running mate, Tim Walz, a white Lutheran.
Fea said some voters in the counties surrounding Scranton, where Biden was born, may have voted for him in 2020 because of the Catholic connection, but may not have voted for Harris.
“You could argue that the same thing has to do with these counties … also with Pennsylvania and with the nation,” Fea said.
A passionate anti-abortion activist, Nikki Bruni of Pittsburgh says she could never vote for Harris. Trump has her vote, although she is dismayed that he is turning away from Republicans’ traditionally staunch opposition.
“I thought about not voting, but Pennsylvania is a swing state,” said Bruni, who leads the local anti-abortion group People Concerned for the Unborn Child. “I must do what I morally can to prevent evil from completely gaining the upper hand.”
For Catholics supporting Harris, there is a similar urgency: In a state where more than a quarter of voters were Catholic in 2020, the entire election could hinge on a handful of their co-religionists.
A group, Catholics Vote for the Common Good, recently put up posters around Pittsburgh and Erie urging Catholics to address the “common good” – a set of vital concerns in Catholic social teaching – and not just the individual question of abortion.
“If you want to be pro-life, you have to be more than just anti-abortion,” said the group’s Pennsylvania chairman, Kevin Hayes. “Immigration has a pro-life component. Healthcare has a life-protecting component. Providing appropriate support to young families and young mothers with children has a life-protecting component.”
He also said Trump posed a threat to democracy with his verbal attacks on the justice system and calling his critics “enemies from within.”
Although both campaigns are courting the votes of Hispanic Catholics, the majority of Pennsylvania’s Catholic population is descended from white European immigrants, many of whom worked in the mines and mills of the state’s industrial heyday. Their numbers have dwindled amid industrial decline and church scandals, but many still remain, and their legacy is marked by steeples and onion domes across the state.
“This population should not be overlooked,” said Hayes, who is among the Catholics calling on the Harris campaign to pay more attention to them.
To be clear, there is no “Catholic vote” as there might have been in previous generations, when Catholics could be expected to support their own voting bloc.
But there are Catholic voters – lots of them.
According to AP VoteCast, 27% of Pennsylvania voters identified as Catholic in 2020, and neighboring swing states Michigan and Wisconsin also have immense Catholic populations. A Franklin & Marshall Poll poll in October suggested there could be competition among Catholics in the state.
Pennsylvania’s predominantly white and non-Hispanic Catholics supported Trump over Biden by a margin of 55% to 44% this year, while the statewide Catholic electorate was roughly evenly split with a much larger Hispanic share.
Vance, now the only Catholic in the race, was heavily influenced by conservative Catholics. Still, he has supported Trump’s efforts to downplay abortion as a central issue, even as Trump still claims credit for the Supreme Court appointees who helped overturn Roe v. Repeal Wade and turn the matter over to the states.
Hayes and other Harris supporters have pushed her campaign to pay more attention to Catholics in Pennsylvania, and they have made their own moves.
A group of Catholics from the Philadelphia area recently traveled by bus to Wilkes-Barre, near Scranton – stopping for Mass at a Polish Catholic shrine along the way. They went door-to-door on behalf of their candidate before holding a campaign rally in the evening.
One of the tour’s organizers, Steve Rukavina, said the group particularly targets Catholics and others with ancestry in Poland, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, including NATO countries.
He cited concerns that Trump has questioned NATO’s mission and repeatedly voiced objections to the Biden-Harris administration’s U.S. aid deliveries to Ukraine. Trump has vaguely promised to end the war and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I believe that a significant number of Polish and Ukrainian Americans will switch and vote for the Democratic candidacy in 2024 because of the NATO and Ukraine issues as well as the character question,” Rukavina said.
The U.S. Catholic bishops, in their guide for Catholic voters, declared opposition to abortion “our top priority because it directly attacks our most vulnerable and voiceless brothers and sisters.”
They also cited concerns that don’t fully fit either party’s platform, including pro-LGBTQ+ issues, threats to religious freedom, migrant suffering, racism, wars, and access to health care and education.
According to a late-summer Pew Research Center poll, fewer than half of Catholics cited abortion as a “very important” issue in their voting decision. More than half cited gun policy, foreign policy, Supreme Court appointments and health care, while two-thirds or more cited immigration, violent crime and the economy.
Trump supporter James Karamicky expressed some of these concerns after leaving a recent mass at St. Paul Cathedral in Pittsburgh. He criticized the Biden administration for its border policies and for sending billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine.
“That’s too much money,” he said. “There are people in this country who are suffering, the homeless, the vets.”
Tatiana Rad, a Trump supporter and Ukrainian Catholic immigrant, said the former president was the clear choice.
Rad grew up in the former Soviet Union, where Catholics were persecuted, and she sees Republicans as more genial to religion. She supports Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and believes he will make good on his claim to end the war in Ukraine.
“When America is strong, the whole world will look to America,” she said. “They need a strong leader.”
Brandon Friez, a University of Pittsburgh student who supports Harris, said her presidency is the best choice for preserving democracy. He also sees moral problems with the Republican Party and Trump.
“The long-term suffering of the poor should not be allowed,” he said. “I feel like the Republican Party isn’t doing enough to alleviate the suffering of the poor.”
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Associated Press religion coverage is supported by the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
