3 Steps Democrats Can Take To Reclaim The Catholic Vote

Kamala Harris lost big in 2024. She not only lost the electoral college, but she also lost the popular vote. As of November 10, 2024, Donold J. Trump won 312 electoral votes and the popular vote by over 3.5 million votes. A major factor contributing to the Harris loss, the Catholic vote, witnessed Catholics supporting Trump in droves.

According to Tyler Arnold at Catholic News Agency, the exit polls showed:

According to the Washington Post’s exit poll, Trump won the national Catholic vote by a 15-point margin: 56% to 41%. This shows a much larger victory for Trump among Catholic voters than the Post’s 2020 exit polls, which showed Trump with only a five-point lead above President Joe Biden, 52% to 47%.

The shift represents a 10-point swing in favor of Trump from 2020 to 2024.

Brian Kaylor writing at Newsweek concurs:

Exit polling data on Tuesday shows Harris losing Catholic voters by 18 percentage points. That put her even below Clinton, who at least managed to win the national popular vote. Harris cracking just 40 percent of Catholics as Trump ran up to 58 percent is a huge loss, especially in states with large Catholic populations like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Harris fell not only among white Catholics but all Catholics, which is probably tied to her losses among Latino men.

All-in-all, Democrats lost power in America because they lost the Catholic vote. In my previous article, I provided a postmortem as to why Harris lost and asked progressives to self-reflect on how to move forward. For this article, I offer Democrats insight into how they can reclaim some of the Catholic vote in 2026 and 2028.

Step 1: Abandon Extreme Positions on Abortion

First, if Democrats want to regain the Catholic vote, they must abandon their current extreme view on abortion. Democrats once supported “safe, legal, and rare,” now they support “shout your abortion.” Catholics, even “pro-choice” Catholics, do not support the extreme abortion position Democrats currently hold. Furthermore, even progressive pro-life Catholics hold their noses when voting for Democrats. They hope that other Democrat positions on social programs and the environment outweigh Democrat extreme views on abortion. Democrats abandoning their extreme abortion views will go far in reclaiming some Catholic votes.

Step 2: Stop Targeting Pro-Lifers, Nuns, and Catholic Hospitals

Second, during the Biden/Harris administration, pro-lifers (Catholics among them) were legally threated, targeted, and persecuted for expressing their pro-life views. The federal government used the “FACE Act” to aggressively come after pro-lifers (even jailing a 75 year-old grandmother). Moreover, Democrats ought to lay off threatening nuns and Catholic hospitals that refuse to allow abortions or adoptions to same-sex couples (against Catholic moral teaching). If Democrats cease going after nuns and hospitals, it will go a long way to reclaiming some Catholic votes.

Step 3: Abandon Woke Ideology and Protect Title IX

Trump has done a good job in claiming that Democrats do nothing more than the woke agenda. (Bernie Sanders on CNN’s State of the Union, 11/11/24.)

Bernie Sanders understands what many Democrats fail to see, that is, leaning too heavily into wokeness does not win elections. The Harris campaign leaned into DEI and wokeness to appeal to her base and alienate everyone else. She also failed to distance herself from the extreme gender ideology of the Biden/Harris administration. Conversely, Trump promised to protect Title IX, end the federal government’s promotion of extreme gender ideology, and DEI. This promise resonated with most Americans and most Catholic voters. Moving forward, if Democrats abandon woke ideology and promise to protect Title IX, they could potentially regain Catholic votes.

Final Thoughts…

To conclude, in this article, I laid out three steps Democrats need to take to gain back the Catholic vote in 2026, 2028, and beyond. First, Democrats need to move back to their “safe, legal, and rare” abortion stance. Next, they need to stop targeting pro-lifers, Catholic hospitals, and nuns. Finally, Democrats must abandon their current infatuation with wokeness and extreme gender ideology.

True, all these moves do represent moving away from the extreme left, towards the right, and back to center left. Democrats once occupied this space not too long ago. If they wish to appeal to Catholic voters, Democrats must abandon the far left and endeavor to reoccupy this space once again. The question is, do they possess the needed fortitude? If they do not, they ought to consider the Catholic vote lost for good.