The 2012 Catholic Vote: An Early Assessment (breakdown by state)

The Catholic Thing ^ | November 19, 2012 | George J. Marlin

[NYer]

I live in Long Island and in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy my home was without electricity, heat or lights for 14 days, 2 hours, and 30 minutes.  Sitting in the dark every night shivering in my living room (which hit a low of 49 degrees), I had plenty of time to brood over the disastrous 2012 election results, the way Catholics voted in particular, and why it happened.

Here’s what I came up with:

GOP internal tracking polls that had Romney winning were wrong because pollsters could not factor into their mathematical formulas the effectiveness of Obama’s Election Day ground operation. Obama people may be awful at governing, but they excel at mobilizing turnout.

Leftist community organizers, often financed by our tax dollars, have been fine tuning their “get out the vote” techniques since the mid-1960s.  And during the past four years, they went beyond identifying voting blocs by zip codes or neighborhoods. They actually compiled dossiers on millions of individuals who were sympathetic to their agenda and personalized messages designed to push their political hot buttons.

Obama’s Chicago gang focused on turning out pro-abortion single women, Latinos, African-Americans, and recipients of government welfare programs – and keeping home 2008 Obama supporters who were leaning against him this year—particularly blue-collar Catholics.

The disenchanted were inundated with campaign propaganda that painted Romney as an out of touch plutocrat who would be a worse president than Obama.  The success of this voter suppression strategy explains why Obama was the first re-elected president to receive fewer votes than in his first election.

As for the Catholic vote, utilizing currently available data (which is still not complete), I’ve compiled the following chart that compares votes cast by Catholics in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections in a dozen or so states where exit polling was done and actually allows us to make such comparisons. (Though you will see exit polls reported on by various news outlets, basically all of them were conducted by Edison Media Research, which supplied the results broken down below.)

 

		2008 Generic Catholic Vote		2012 Generic Catholic Vote		Catholic Vote
State	% of Catholics	McCain %	Obama %	Romney %	Obama %	Romney 2012 vs. McCain 2008
AZ	23	49	49	50	50	+1
CA	28	37	58	38	62	+1
CT	48	50	46	49	51	-1
FL	28	49	50	52	47	+3
IA	23	41	50	52	47	+11
ME	26	37	61	41	56	+4
MI	29	46	51	55	44	+9
NV	25	42	57	46	51	+4
NH	38	50	50	54	46	+4
NJ	44	55	45	43	45	-1
NM	32	29	69	32	64	+3
NY	42	41	59	53	47	+12
NC	9	N/A	N/A	66	34	--
OH	26	52	47	55	44	+3
PA	35	52	48	50	49	-2
VA	15	N/A	N/A	55	45	--
WI	32	47	53	56	44	+9

 

As is clear, in most state results there was a slight shift in the Catholic vote towards Mitt Romney, but quite a large movement to the Republican candidate in Iowa, Michigan, New York, and Wisconsin – all battleground states with the exception of New York. The worst change for Republicans was in Pennsylvania, which registered a 2 percent increase in Catholic votes for the Democrat incumbent, President Obama.

Nationwide, in 2008, Senator McCain received 45 percent of the generic Catholic vote, 52 percent of church-going Catholics, 53 percent of White Catholics, and 32 percent of Hispanics.  Governor Romney received 48 percent of the generic Catholic vote, 57 percent of Church attendees, 52 percent of cafeteria Catholics, 59 percent of white Catholics, and 27 percent of Hispanics.

While white Catholic support for the Republican nominee was higher than McCain’s in 2008, turnout was not enough in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio to put them into the GOP Electoral College column.  On the other hand, the Hispanic vote increased by about 9 million over 2008 totals.  This helped put Obama over the top in the tightly contested states of Florida, Nevada, and Colorado.

In my next column for The Catholic Thing, I will try to provide a broader analysis of the impact of Catholic voter turnout in key swing states, which is a more complex phenomenon than has been recognized to date. For now, it’s worth noting the curious fact that most news outlets have not made much of an effort to dig into the Catholic results.  In several ways, Catholic voters were trending back a bit towards Catholic values, but how, why – and in many cases, why not – will occupy us in our next.

[daniel1212]

It i a lot of data, but that it what comprehensive analysis gets into, and i also thought more data on why the election was decided the way it was would be interesting.

Correlation is not necessarily causation, and does have many factors - money being a primary one - yet with the possible exception of black Catholics for whose voting in 2012 i found no data, from what i see evangelicals testify to being more conservative in comparisons btwn white, Latino, male/female rich/poor, and location.

The only deviation is that of 6% more black C’s supporting the GOP over Democrats than black evangelicals, yet in primary moral views the latter testified to being more conservative. But the fact is that sadly the victim entitlement mentality and race largely trumps Biblical views among such.

[sitetest]

Dear RobbyS,

“And my original statement is true, I think.”

No, it was not. You said that murderers stay locked up. But the facts are that they don't stay locked up anymore than in the US.

“Maybe I should have emphasized the certainty of punishment.”

Here, too, despite the sensationalism in cases to the contrary, most murders in the US are solved, and the murderers mostly serve as much prison time as in Germany.

“The end result is that the average position is more secure in his persons and possessions than we are.”

I'm not sure this is a result of better training of judicial or law enforcement personnel, or that the judicial system has a somewhat different character.

“...because Germans are far more rule bound than Americans are, Americans in general”

This, I think, is closer to the truth. Germany's culture is different from ours, and is also more homogenous. A secondary effect of that may impact the efficacy and efficiency of the judicial system, but even if Germany had a less functional judicial system, I'd imagine that their crime rate (including violent crimes) would still be lower because, as you say, Germans are more rule-bound than Americans generally.

sitetest

[D-fendr]

If the voter is black, latino or asian, they are much more likely to vote Dem, regardless of their church/denomination.

If the church/denomination has a higher percentage of these groups, they are more likely to vote Dem.

There are also socio-economic features as well as married/unmarried female for example.

Race/ethnicity, social-economic, age, marital status, geographic location, cultural influences.. all of these overwhelm church factors.

[daniel1212]

>Race/ethnicity, social-economic, age, marital status, geographic location, cultural influences.. all of these overwhelm church factors.<

Money, or the lack thereof, has a strong correlation the type of church one IDs with, and race/ethnicity in particular is primary factor in votes, and other things do as well, but the issue is that comparing Catholics and Evangelicals in each class then we almost always see more conservative views among the latter. Thank God it is not like France, but both are decreasing.

[RobbyS]

No, I don’t think the result is the same at all. Germany offers a safer environment than we do. That you don’t have to have the death penalty to achieve that result. Some German communities will be safer than others, and probably where there are a fewer per cent of Germans, or in communities where —paradoxically they people never lived lived under totalitarian government. Point: the death penalty is not necessary to achieve the desired result. Indeed, it is counterproductive where people are repelled by the very idea. What is necessary is to have a police force with adequate authority and adequate training and in sufficient numbers to do the job. What is necessary is a judicial system that spends its resources enforcing the right laws, and judges who will weigh the evidence relatively unbiased by political considerations. No the last is the greatest danger to a proper system. The europeanization of national laws, the attempt to force every community follower the predilections of the European elites, who have more In common with their peers across the border, ends up making things worse for the people.

[sitetest]

Dear RobbyS,

“No, I don’t think the result is the same at all. Germany offers a safer environment than we do.”

Not only did I not say otherwise, but I actually agreed on this point by way of stating that I attributed this more to culture than anything else:

“...but even if Germany had a less functional judicial system, I'd imagine that their crime rate (including violent crimes) would still be lower because, as you say, Germans are more rule-bound than Americans generally.”

I also haven't argued one way or the other as to whether Germany should have the death penalty; I only noted that we should continue to maintain it here.

Where we differ is not whether Germany has a lower crime rate or not. The first place where we differ is that you said it's because Germany keeps its murderers locked up. I've shown that Germany doesn't lock up its murderers anymore than the US. The US has a very high closure rate on crimes of murder, and a very high conviction rate for the crime of murder. In fact, generally speaking folks charged with felonies in the US have a conviction rate of 90%. Finally, the US has an average murder sentence served that is quite comparable to Germany's, perhaps even a bit harsher.

These are a couple of key performance indicators of a judicial system: Does it catch the bad guys? Does it keep the worst of them off the streets for long stretches? The US and Germany are comparable in these key performance indicators.

But clearly, as you mentioned, German culture is more rule-bound, and that is likely the primary driver of why German society has a lower crime rate.

sitetest

[Zionist Conspirator]

“pro-life group equates anti-death penalty with anti-abortion”

If they are Catholic than this is a required church teaching - opposition to abortion and the death penalty. Not sure what your point is here.

Wideawake???

[RobbyS]

And oyu assumed that I meant they just throw away the key. Certainty of punishment is a far better deterent than long sentences. As to culture, how does one separate the judicial system from the culture, and if the aim is to keep people safe, then the Germans do a better job than we do. Unless things have changed radically, the Germans do n fear to let their children roam the neighborhood and cower in fear in their airconditioned homes. The state has the right to execute prisoners and in our country we have the right to bear arms, in part because of the failures of our legal system to protect us against criminals.

[sitetest]

Dear RobbyS,

First, you didn't originally say that it was certainty. You said that it was:

“It works rather well in Germany, which has no death penalty , but keeps murderers locked up.”

That goes to KEEPING murderers LOCKED UP - that is, IN PRISON.

Both countries do this.

But secondly, I have no idea where you get this idea that there is little certainty of punishment for murderers. The vast majority of murderers in the US are caught, at least in the vast majority of localities, and they are overwhelmingly convicted and sent to prison for long stretches.

“As to culture, how does one separate the judicial system from the culture,...”

That's a non sequitur. How does one separate them? Easy. Culture is culture; the judicial system is the judicial system. They aren't the same thing.

“...and if the aim is to keep people safe, then the Germans do a better job than we do.”

Straw man argument. I never said otherwise. In fact, I've readily ceded that the crime rate in the US is higher than in Germany.

“Unless things have changed radically, the Germans do n fear to let their children roam the neighborhood and cower in fear in their airconditioned homes.”

My kids roam my neighborhood. No one cowers in fear in my little part of the United States.

Your stereotypes are generally false and offensive.

There are dangerous places in the United States. I know the same is true in Germany. There are 3.5 million square miles of land in the United States. I haven't visited all of it, but I've visited quite a bit of it. I'd be fine with my kids roaming most of those neighborhoods any day of the week.

By the way, as a result of immigration, crime is up in Germany, and has become a political issue. I will point out that it is the same law enforcement and the same judicial system that enforces and prosecutes against immigrants as non-immigrants alike in Germany, but that the immigrant communities often have a different CULTURE from the non-immigrant communities, and thus higher crime rates.

“The state has the right to execute prisoners and in our country we have the right to bear arms, in part because of the failures of our legal system to protect us against criminals.”

What a load of garbage this is. The state may execute offenders because 1) it's in the Constitution and 2) it is the right of states generally to have recourse to the death penalty against some offenders. This is the constant teaching of the Catholic Church.

As for the right to bear arms, that is a natural right of men. To the degree that a state infringes on this right, the state does something evil and illegitimate. As to WHY the founders included this in the Constitution, go here and watch the interviews with Justice Scalia:

http://www.nationalreview.com/media/uncommonknowledge

Go to the Chapter 4 interview.

sitetest

[RobbyS]

I think I have already explained that when I said that the Germans lock up murderers instead of killing them and that works very well. I also said that public confidence that murderers will be locked up works as a deterant as well as periodically executing people. And I know that open borders, whether one is talking about the US or Europe, causes people to feeling less secure. And people do feel insecure, The number of guns sold in the United States has grown astronomically. There is a quiet panic about child molesters which means that if one drives in a suburb, you almost never see any young kids playing unattended by adults.My own kids grew up in villages in Germany with the same liberty I had growing up in a small town in Texas. In our Kreis of about 250,000 people, there had been just one death by shooting in five years. I became aware of this fact when a friend of ours who was a German policeman got involved at night in our village when a guy shot his girfriend and then ran from police. Luckily he shot himself because the police had to confront him. Now I know this was a different place from Frankfurt, especially south Frankfurt, but even there the situation was more like Dallas in the 1950s when Jack Ruby was operating a strip joint downtown.

[D-fendr]

We’re either talking past each other or repeating ourselves.

If correlation is our sole guide, other factors than church/denomination are stronger; and,

Blacks alone would disprove the theory; and,

Correlation is still not causation.

[sitetest]

Dear RobbyS,

“I think I have already explained that when I said that the Germans lock up murderers instead of killing them and that works very well.”

In the US, we also lock up our murderers instead of killing them. The death penalty is rarely used. There are 10 or 15 thousand homicides per year in the US, only a handful ever result in execution of the offender.

At a rate of about 99%, we lock up our murderers rather than execute them.

“I also said that public confidence that murderers will be locked up works as a deterant as well as periodically executing people.”

Straw man argument. I never said that the death penalty is, or should be a deterrent. Although, it DOES deter the criminal who is executed from re-offending. Ted Bundy killed roughly 50 folks and then was sentenced to a prison term. He escaped, killed three more folks and then was caught again and executed. Since his execution, he hasn't killed anyone else. THAT'S deterrence. But of a limited scope.

“The number of guns sold in the United States has grown astronomically”

You do realize that this has little to do with crime in the US and much more to do with the fact that many Americans are afraid that the Kenyan anti-Christ - a fellow, by the way, who is extremely popular in Germany, he would have received 90% of the German vote if they had been allowed to participate in our presidential election - will move against our Second Amendment rights, and thus are stocking up before he gets a chance.

Try not to mix the apples with the oranges.

“There is a quiet panic about child molesters which means that if one drives in a suburb, you almost never see any young kids playing unattended by adults.”

There was a panic as folks learned just how many molesters were around them. This was due to criminal records being put on-line, and folks’ ability to see who had done while sitting in front of their home computer. The panic is subsiding.

As for children playing freely, it certainly happens in my neighborhood. But less than when I was a child. For two reasons unrelated to your theory:

First, there are fewer kids, relatively speaking. When I was a kid, there were often three, four, five children in a household. A neighborhood with 40 homes might have 150 - 160 children. Today, families often don't have more than two children, and many households are childless altogether. I live in a neighborhood with nearly 90 homes. I don't think all the families combined have even 90 children currently living at home.

Second, more of children's time is taken up by structured events. Much, much more so than when I was a child. This is especially true for upper middle and upper class families. There are two reasons for this: Because there are fewer children, often, structured activities are important to get one’s children in the presence of other children. When I was a kid, we could get 5, 8, 10 or more kids together pretty easily and have a basketball game. Or a football game. And we did. Tough to do nowadays. So, organized stuff is often the only way to go.

As well, especially with the middle and upper classes, there is a real focus on building a child's “résumé” starting fairly early in life, to get into the best schools, and ultimately, into the better colleges. My older son is a college freshman, so the application process is still relatively fresh in my mind. On his applications to prestigious universities, activities that he began in grade school, such as karate and piano, were listed.

Whether these things are good things or bad things, they're not related to the number of molesters in the area.

However, this is pretty far afield. We were speaking of murderers, not child molesters.

What you originally said was:

“It works rather well in Germany, which has no death penalty , but keeps murderers locked up.”

And so does the US. No matter how many times you post back, no matter how many tangents you go off on, no matter how many rabbit holes you go down, no matter how many irrelevant things you say to the conversation, no matter how many insults you offer to the United States and its citizens, the inescapable truth is that the US locks up its murderers at a similar rate and for similar terms as does Germany.

If you want to withdraw this foolish sentence - “It works rather well in Germany, which has no death penalty , but keeps murderers locked up.” - and argue about other things, that's fine. You may find that there is little about which to argue, at least with me. But it remains that this is the case: The United States keeps its murderers locked up about as much as does Germany.

sitetest

[Varda]

As I and other posters pointed out there is no required Church teaching of being anti-death penalty, there is one for being anti-abortion. To believe or teach that these two positions are equivalent in importance is to believe or teach error.

[JCBreckenridge]

Which I did not do. :)

[Varda]

That’s good. The pro-lifers who equate the two are really giving cover to Democrats which is what I was trying to say in my original post.

[daniel1212]

Re Correlation is still not causation.

The reality is that what one truly believes is the cause behind how one votes, presuming he is informed and understands. Otherwise religion is meaningless, and being Catholic would have no bearing on their opposition to abortion. But what we do see is an overall consistent substantial correspondence between faith groups and predominate moral and political views, indicative of commitment to said faith, and or discernment.

Thus Hindu Asian-Americans were at 9%/72% Republican/Democrat, while Asian-American evangelicals were at 56%/28% and Asian-American Catholics were at 42%/41%.

The fact that there are anomalies to how faith is manifest does not negate faith as being the cause, but reveals that in such cases other factors overcome what one professes, or testifies to lack of discernment, and manifests what such really believes. And the less articulate or demanding a faith tradition is, is also overall reflected.

Obviously if all Evangelicals and Catholics really believed that abortion and homosexuality as well as the victim-entitlement mentality disallowed voting for candidates that supported such when there was an alternative, then they would not be voting for the liberal.

Thus while there are many factors involved in determining how a person will vote, his vote manifests what he really believes and understands and is the real cause behind his informed vote, as well as his other actions.

And what the stats indicate is that evangelicals as a whole are more committed, in opposition to culture, and or have better understanding, or find it easier to support candidates who best represent the traditional morality which his faith requires.

[D-fendr]

Or it could be the racial/socio-economic, cultural composition is quite different to begin with.

I agree. All Christians need to do a better job of instructing their congregants on the importance of all their teachings.

And all Christians need to do a better job of helping others come to Christ.