I have long felt, largely due to my personal experience, that this group of Catholics is much bigger than people realize.
This is the first article I've seen that actually puts a number [12%] to it. I did an extensive survey of the religious vote for the 2008 Presidential Election, and then matched up my results to the categories given in an article titled Bare Minimum Catholicism. Here's what that looked like:
—“Ex-Catholics. Solid for the Democrats.”Note that I didn't include any numbers for the "sweats the details" Catholic (the author of the article said it would be a "very small slice"), because I didn't have any. This article still fails to provide the actual breakdown, but it does give us a good start of sizing that slice:xx% McCain, 68% Obama - Don't attend church4 **
—“Cultural Catholics who may go to church a few times a year. This may be an undecided voter, but this vote leans to Democrats.”
37% McCain, 61% Obama - Non-weekly-mass-attending Catholics6,12 > 45% McCain, 54% Obama - Catholics1,4,6,8,9,10,11,12
—“Sunday-morning American Catholics. This voter is a regular in the pew and may even play some leadership role in the parish. This is the true Catholic swing vote.”
55% McCain, 43% Obama - Weekly mass-attending Catholics 6,9
—“The ‘sweats the details’ Roman Catholic who goes to confession, is active in the full sacramental life of the parish and almost always backs the Vatican on doctrinal matters. This group is a small slice of the American Catholic pie.”
[Exit poll numbers from the 2008 Presidential Election demographics, footnoted and annotated on my profile page.]
....studies of the 2004 results identified a new hardcore vote of roughly 16 percent of Catholics (nearly 10 million people) who attend church more than once a week and identify as ideologically “conservative”. George Bush targetted these people and increased his percentage of the conservative Catholic vote....