(LifeSiteNews) — Catholics supported Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. presidential election by a “massive margin” of 15 points — the largest in decades — according to exit polls.
A Washington Post exit poll found that Trump outperformed Kamala Harris among American Catholics by 56 percent to 41 percent. An NBC exit poll similarly showed that Catholics voted for the president by a 15-point margin in 10 key swing states, with Trump receiving 56 percent of their vote compared with Harris’ 41 percent.
This year’s Catholic voter turnout is starkly different from 2020, when Joe Biden received a reported 51 percent of the Catholic vote compared with Trump’s 47 percent.
This election’s “numbers are shocking,” CatholicVote.org president Brian Burch remarked in a statement posted to X.
According to Burch, “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.”
Many commentators have pointed out that Harris has alienated Catholics in several missteps during her campaign, including her skipping the traditional Al Smith fundraising dinner and instead recording what was widely described as an extremely “cringy” video that insults Catholics and their religion.
During an October rally, Harris also ridiculed two students after they shouted “Jesus is Lord!” and “Christ is King!” by telling them, “Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” as the crowd loudly jeered the Christian students.
Evidence of Harris’ anti-Catholic bent goes back years to when she was a U.S. senator and suggested that a judicial nominee should be disqualified because of his Catholic faith. JD Vance, Trump’s VP running mate, recently wrote an op-ed citing this incident as one of many that shows a “consistent pattern of anti-Catholic policies and actions.”
The same year she attacked the judicial nominee for his Knights of Columbus membership, “Ms. Harris condemned the Masterpiece Cakeshop Supreme Court decision, in effect arguing that the government should be able to compel Catholics — or believers of any faith — to perform services that violate their sincerely held religious views, or indeed anyone’s conscientious belief she disagrees with,” Vance wrote.
The Masterpiece Cakeshop suit involved a Christian baker in Colorado who refused to bake two homosexual men a “wedding” cake.
Vance then homed in on her legislative record, which he observed “was similarly antagonistic toward Catholics:”
She was an early cosponsor of the ‘Equality Act,’ a bill that would render the Constitution’s protection of religious liberty effectively null and void. Among many potential consequences, this legislation would demand that Catholic churches host [so-called] same-sex weddings, require Catholic schools (and all federally funded education institutions) to allow men to compete in women’s sports and share women’s restroom and locker room facilities, and strip faith-based charities of their tax-exempt status.
It is noteworthy that a recent study indicates the winner of the Catholic vote is “reasonab(ly)” predictive of the winner of the American presidency.