In other words Trump did considerably better with Catholics than with American voters as a whole.
It is badly uninformed to write off the Catholic vote as Democratic
Unfortunately, Roman Catholic voting patterns since 1952 suggest otherwise. Only four times has the RCC vote gone toward the Republican noted in red below.
The White Catholic vote has been more in favor of the GOP candidate at least since 2000. However, the Hispanic Catholic vote has been sufficient to shift the overall Catholic vote to the DNC candidate.
I do not have any splits between White Catholics and Hispanic Catholics prior to 2000.
Yr | D | R | ||
1952 | 56% | 44% | ||
1956 | 51% | 49% | ||
1960 | 78% | 22% | Kennedy | |
1964 | 76% | 24% | LBJ | |
1968 | 59% | 33% | ||
1972 | 48% | 52% | ||
1976 | 57% | 41% | Carter | |
1980 | 46% | 47% | ||
1984 | 39% | 61% | ||
1988 | 51% | 49% | ||
1992 | 47% | 35% | Clinton | |
1996 | 55% | 35% | Clinton | |
2000 | 52% | 46% | ||
2004 | 52% | 48% | ||
2008 | 53% | 47% | Obama | |
2012 | 49% | 48% | Obama | |
2016 | 45% | 52% |
Source: Gallup
http://cara.georgetown.edu/presidential%20vote%20only.pdf
Per Pew, the most consistent group voting for Republicans since 2004 has been White, born again, evangelical Christians voting at 78%, 74%, 78% and 81% in those races from 2004-2016.
It’s true that the Catholic vote has trended toward Democratic for years, even decades.
I was only quoting the 2016 exit poll results of 52% Trump vs 45% Hillary, cited in National Review, as a reason not to write off the Catholic voters. Trump certainly didn’t write them off, and it paid off for him.