Roman Catholics turned out for Bush

By Jim Remsen
Knight Ridder Newspapers

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PHILADELPHIA — Alongside President Bush's overwhelming support from his evangelical Christian base Tuesday came another dramatic election result: Bush reversed his 2000 showing and convincingly captured the Roman Catholic vote.

Catholics, who have become a closely watched swing vote, favored Bush over Democrat John Kerry by 52 percent to 47 percent, according to national exit polls. That is a turnaround from 2000, when Bush got 47 percent to Democrat Al Gore's 50 percent.

The shift translates to 16.1 million Catholic votes for Bush, an increase of about 3.3 million from four years ago, said John Kenneth White, professor of politics at Catholic University in Washington.

The results are a repudiation of Kerry, the first Catholic nominated for president since 1960. Kerry's support of abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research raised the ire of some bishops and Catholic conservatives and resulted in 56 percent of weekly Mass attendees voting for Bush, according to the exit polls.

"Churchgoing people saved the election for Bush as practicing Catholics and evangelicals moved much more strongly for him," said George Marlin, author of "The American Catholic Voter: 200 Years of Political Impact."

Catholics represent about a quarter of the electorate, or about 31 million voters this year, and Bush had aggressively courted them, particularly in battleground states.

The president got a noticeable boost from white Catholics, whose support rose to 56 percent from 52 percent four years ago. He also did better among Hispanic Catholics, who turned out in larger numbers and gave Bush 44 percent of their vote, up from 35 percent in 2000.

Because turnout rose overall this year, analysts were not concluding that the Catholic help nationally was the decisive difference for Bush. About 80 percent of white evangelicals went for the president, delivering him about 20.6 million votes, or about 1.3 million more than in 2000.

Catholics are hardly a monolithic bloc. Catholics who said they did not attend Mass weekly — and who outnumbered more observant voters — preferred Kerry, 50 percent to 49 percent.
 
"With white Catholics, Bush did better" than in 2000, said John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron and an expert on religious-voting patterns. "With regular Mass-goers, he did even better. And in swing states, he did even better. There are a lot of divisions in the Catholic community, and Bush was able to exploit one, between more traditional and less traditional Catholics."

Carroll Doherty, a pollster for the Pew Research Center, said the results highlight a sharp "observance gap" in Catholicism and other religious groups.

The more frequently a person attends worship services, the more likely that person is to vote Republican, Doherty said. "This is one of the major dividing lines in politics, and it cuts across denominations," he said.

Analysts were unsure of the influence of Catholic bishops who had warned that parishioners should vote in accordance with church teachings on abortion and other "life issues."

"Surveys have shown that Catholics generally don't walk [in] lockstep with church prelates," said G. Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., who is director of the Keystone Poll. "But the bishops probably had some salience, particularly with ethnic groups and so-called Reagan Democrats, who tend to be more pro-life and against the Hollywood elite."

White, the Catholic University professor, believes the bishops "helped Bush enormously. If Bush's strategy was to enlarge his base, you do that by finding like-minded people and like-minded Roman Catholics who find life issues and religiosity important."

In Ohio, Bush won 55 percent of the Catholic vote, including 59 percent of white Catholics and 65 percent of weekly Mass-goers.