CV NEWS FEED // An opinion piece published in The Hill this week stated that winning over Catholic voters will be “essential” for President Joe Biden to win reelection in November.
John Kenneth White, Ph.D., a politics professor at the Catholic University of America, penned the Monday op-ed.
“The Catholic vote matters,” he wrote, pointing out that during former President Donald Trump’s successful 2016 campaign, he “won 50 percent of Catholics compared to Hillary Clinton’s 46 percent.”
However, White observed that things were different four years later in 2020, when “Biden bested Trump among all Catholics, 52 percent to 47 percent.”
“Today, polls find Catholics preferring Trump, 55 percent, to 43 percent for Biden,” White noted. “Yet there are opportunities for Biden to make inroads with Catholic voters.”
White went on to compare the current war in Ukraine to the Cold War during the 1980s. When then-President Ronald Reagan won re-election in a 49-state landslide in 1984, he won 56% of the Catholic vote – then an unusually high percentage for a Republican.
“Crucial is the threat posed by Vladimir Putin and his dream of restoring what Ronald Reagan once called the ‘evil empire,’” wrote White. “And 67 percent of Americans believe Putin intends to invade other countries besides Ukraine.”
>> POLL SHOWS LARGE PERCENTAGE OF CATHOLICS DID NOT VOTE IN 2020 <<
“Nations most uneasy about Putin’s objectives have sizeable ethnic populations in the U.S,” White outlined:
For example, Pennsylvania and Michigan each have more than three-quarters of a million Poles; in Wisconsin, there are nearly half a million. Virtually all are Catholic. And each is key to Biden’s reelection chances.
“Similarly, Biden can reap rewards among mostly Catholic Hispanic voters in Nevada and Arizona,” White argued. He did not mention the string of recent polls that show Hispanic voters sharply trending to the right and abandoning Biden in favor of Trump.
“Biden is well-positioned to make a concerted outreach to Catholic voters,” White claimed. “While he is only the second Catholic to become president after John F. Kennedy, no president is more Catholic.”
The professor did not point out that Biden has continuously taken positions and supported policies antithetical to Church teachings, and has been consistently called out by faithful Catholics and many Catholic leaders, including bishops.
White added that, “unlike past presidents, Biden is a faithful churchgoer, regularly attending mass each weekend.”
>> BISHOP: BIDEN’S SIGN OF CROSS AT ABORTION RALLY ‘MAKES MOCKERY OF CATHOLIC FAITH’ <<
Also in the piece, White touched on Biden’s recent meeting with the pope:
pictures of Joe Biden’s meeting with Pope Francis were transmitted to the television networks. After Biden’s first meeting with the Pope as president in 2021, Francis called Biden “a good Catholic,” with a grateful Biden replying, “God love ya.” The implied papal imprimatur can only help Biden, as the Pope currently enjoys a 75 percent approval rating among American Catholics.
“Winning the Catholic vote is important, and the Biden campaign must take notice,” White concluded.
CatholicVote Vice President Joshua Mercer responded to White’s op-ed, writing: “It’s true that the Catholic vote looms large in 2024.”
“In the southwest, Hispanic Catholics are souring on Biden’s inflationary policies and his open border,” he noted. “Catholics in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania likewise are turning away from Biden.”
“Biden’s aggressive abortion push and his support for ‘transgender’ ideology is making it much tougher for Democrats to win over Catholics,” Mercer added.
Readers can find White’s full op-ed here.
