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.

[RobbyS]

The Church says that abortion is intrinsically evil; public execution of criminals is not. The Seamless garment crowd are just trying to obsfucate the radical . Blame this on the Bernardin Catholics. or the social jtsuce crowd, who also distort the teachings on the Church. They identify society and the state.

[RobbyS]

If we could be sure he will be. It works rather well in Germany, which has no death penalty , but keeps murderers locked up. Here our rights-based legal system constantly works to get them out, and we have so many prisoners that the state less careful about letting them loose

[RobbyS]

If we could be sure he will be. It works rather well in Germany, which has no death penalty , but keeps murderers locked up. Here our rights-based legal system constantly works to get them out, and we have so many prisoners that the state less careful about letting them loose

[JCBreckenridge]

Abortion = 1 million a year. Death penalty, single digits.

The issue isn’t the people who oppose abortion and oppose the death penalty. The issue are the people who support abortion.

[JCBreckenridge]

“If we could be sure he will be. It works rather well in Germany, which has no death penalty , but keeps murderers locked up. Here our rights-based legal system constantly works to get them out, and we have so many prisoners that the state less careful about letting them loose.”

I’d much prefer that tradeoff - no death penalty - no release. Life should mean life.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Well, it looks like half the Catholics are “catholics”.

The aforementioned “catholics” being wild-eyed, baby-killing, packer/muncher socialists.

Bad news for the real Catholics.

[Rashputin]

"And it is what many here want you to believe as well."

So true. One thing for sure, one group makes up the largest percentage of finger pointers who obviously don't care nearly as much about turning the country around and bringing their American countrymen to Christ as they care about pointing fingers and sewing divisions among Christians.

That sort of behavior makes you wonder just how many of those constantly pointing fingers are flying a flag of convenience and don't actually believe any of what they claim to be a part of. Either they're just like the democrats they claim to oppose and put their politics ahead of their religion, or their religion is just a convenient excuse to spread divisions among people who are going to have to work together if we're ever going to turn the country around.

[RobbyS]

It works in Germany because the Germans are not sentimental about criminals. People are sent to prison to punish them. They are at once treated better and not coddled. Our prisons are full of petty criminals because of the war on drugs, and somehow government officials don’t discriminate between the ax= murderer and the drug pusher.

[JCBreckenridge]

“petty criminals because of the war on drugs”

Ahh, I thought I sniffed a libertarian.

Criminals are criminals. Break the law, go to jail.

[RobbyS]

Some criminals are more dangerous than others. A murderer is more dangerous than a drug-pusher, unless, of course, the pusher heads a gang that does murder.

[JCBreckenridge]

So when a drug pusher sells drugs to your daughter, will you think the same?

[RobbyS]

Well, drugs may be a slow death, but do you really think that someone who murders your daughter is no more guilty than someone who surplies her with drugs?

[D-fendr]

The clearest predictors, based on these factors, are race, age and church attendance.

FEW of my Baptist Bretheren vote Dem

The SBC is not known for its minority population, just the opposite. Blacks and Hispanics voted dem.

[D-fendr]

The difference in vote correlates much more with race, age, and church attendance, much more that church or denomination. The causal argument breaks down - evangelical, mega, catholic, baptist, etc.

The problem with megachurches, in the context of my comment, is they tend to die out with their charismatic leader. What I was pointing to was stability of congregation and teaching. Megachurch leaders tend to have their own take or emphasis, Olsteen for example.

Thanks for your reply.

[Alex Murphy]

		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

Ping for later

[sitetest]

Dear RobbyS,

From wiki, concerning the penalty for murder in Germany:

“The penalty for Mord is lifelong imprisonment, which is usually suspended after 17–18 years (15 years minimum) on a probation of 5 years or if the court decided on a special gravity (Feststellung der besonderen Schwere der Schuld), the sentence can only be suspended much later, earliest after 18 years but usually after 22–23 years (the law states that a suspension after 15 years is not possible for ‘special gravity’ crimes, but provides no explicit minimum served time).”

So - murder gets you about 15 - 23 years in Germany. Not terrible, but for the worst folks, I much prefer the death penalty.

As well, murderers kill in prison, and sometimes escape from prison. Ted Bundy killed about 50 folks, got caught, escaped, killed three more folks.

Since his execution, he hasn’t killed even a single person.

sitetest

[Varda]

“The Church remains whole and correct in Her teaching”

This is a point which caused me to revert years ago. So many would like to change the teachings but they can’t and they won’t becuase the truth is not up for a vote.

[daniel1212]

You will find that the evangelical vote will be more conservative than the Catholic in each age, race ans attendance category.

As regards megachurches, I would say that they cannot be broadbrushed, but must be separated by type. The problem with Osteen type churches is that they owe their numbers to a saltless gospel of perfectly pleasing preaching, and others to Benny Hinn type charisma and counterfeits.

Then you have Calvary Chapel types, as well as 57% of megachurches being founded before 1961, in which more legit qualities may be are at work, and often demographics.

[D-fendr]

You will find that the evangelical vote will be more conservative than the Catholic in each age, race ans attendance category.

Could you post those stats? I'd really like to see the race breakdowns, particularly black and hispanic.

Thanks.

[Varda]

You are mistaken about this. The error is categorizing an intrinsic evil (taking innocent life) with a prudential judgement. As Evangelium Vitae teaches, “You shall not kill” has absolute value when it refers to the innocent person.”