Mixed Messaging by Patrick Carolan

After the 2024 election, there were extensive discussions within the Democratic Party about what went wrong and how the party needs to change in order to win. A simple Google search will produce thousands upon thousands of articles, podcasts, books, and media reports about why the Democrats lost. They suggest that the party must move to the left or become more moderate. They talk about how the party and the campaign did not do a good job messaging, especially among certain groups of voters. Many even identify which categories of voter the party must do a better job of reaching if they are to win again.

Through all the panel discussions on CNN, MSNBC, and other media outlets, through the many thousands of articles and podcasts, there is one category of voter that is hardly ever mentioned: the category of the faith voter, and the Catholic voter in particular.

In 2024, around 64 percent of voters self-identified as Christian, with 21 percent being Catholic. A recent survey sponsored by Vote Common Good found that both the Democratic Party and its voters are seen as unfriendly toward Christianity. In the survey, 58 percent of Christians saw the Democratic Party as hostile to Christianity, and 54 percent saw the same traits among Democratic voters. As Doug Pagitt, the executive director of Vote Common Good described it, “You can’t be the majority party if you ignore the majority faith in this country.” 

In 2006, in a speech at the Sojourners/Call to Renewal “Building a Covenant for a New America” conference, then Senator Barack Obama challenged the Democratic Party to take seriously the need to better understand and reach out to faith voters and warned of the dire consequences if they did not. He talked about how the single biggest gap in party affiliation was not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called “red states” and those who reside in “blue states,” but between those who are people of faith. He went on to say: “Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church.” Twenty years later, the Democratic Party has completely ignored Obama’s challenge and warning. In his first presidential campaign in 2008, Obama won 54 percent of the Catholic vote.

In the 2016 election, Trump won the Catholic vote 52 percent to 44 percent. But that does not tell the whole story. In three key battleground states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Trump won the white Catholic vote by approximately 30 percent. In these states, around 27 percent of voters self-identified as Catholic. The election in these states was extremely close. Trump won Pennsylvania by 45,594 votes, Wisconsin by 21,790, and Michigan by just 10,704 votes. The Republican Party understood the importance of this vote and spent millions reaching out to these voters. If the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party had made any effort at all to reach out to the Catholic vote in these three states, perhaps they could have cut that margin by 5 percent. It would have been enough to turn those states to Clinton, and she would have been elected president. It is worth noting that in 2020, the margin in those states was closer to 50-50, enough so that Biden carried all three and won the presidency.

It has not always been this way. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII wrote his encyclical Rerum Novarum, the genesis of Catholic thought centered on economics and justice. This encyclical helped formulate the concept of Catholic Social Teaching. Rerum Novarum was the beginning of the decades-long collaboration between the Catholic Church and organized labor in the fight for workers’ rights and justice. This alliance helped elect presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy and securing programs like the New Deal. Democratic politicians recognized the importance of appealing to the Catholic voters, offering economic relief and challenging cultural authoritarianism. Today the Democratic Party plays lip service to labor and ignores its Catholic members. Yet I have heard Catholics in Congress, like my good friend Rosa DeLauro, Tom Suozzi, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, talk passionately about how they are Democrats because of their Catholic faith, and how Catholic Social Teaching has shaped and formed their political beliefs.

For many years the Republican Party has understood the importance of reaching out and cultivating the Catholic vote. An article in the National Catholic Reporter highlights how very wealthy conservative Catholic Republicans contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to Catholic organizations “in a way that gives that network far more influence than the U.S. bishops have in shaping the image and purpose of the Catholic Church.” Another article talks about an organization called Donors Trust. As the author writes: “An organization that provided hefty sums of money to nonprofits that spread misinformation about the 2020 presidential election and organized the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol building has also funneled millions of dollars in anonymous donations to right-wing Catholic nonprofits and official Catholic groups.”

While there certainly has been some communication around issues like abortion, for the last 30 years the key message that these groups have been continuously sending through emails, articles, and in talks is that the Democratic Party is anti-Catholic. For the most part, the messaging on abortion has been centered on the idea that Democrats believe and support a woman’s right to have an abortion right up to the moment they are delivering. This message has been sent to Catholic voters repeatedly. The Democrats believe that they have lost the Catholic vote over the issue of abortion. Yet in several states that had referendums on abortion, the Catholic vote strongly supported a woman’s right to choose.

Setting aside what this says about these Catholic voters’ relationship to the Magisterium—a situation similar to the way that many Catholics disregard the teachings on birth control laid out in Humanae Vitae, or how right-wing Catholics disregarded Pope Francis’s teachings on migration, economic inequality, and the environment—it is a telling statistic that more than half of U.S. Catholics (56%) said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases in 2020, while only 14 percent said it should be illegal in all cases.

During the 2024 election, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris was asked if she supported a woman’s right to have an abortion up until the moment she gave birth. Her response was, “I support Roe vs. Wade.” Shortly after that, millions upon millions of Catholics started receiving emails, postcards, and phone calls implying that Harris supported a woman’s right to have an abortion right up until birth. The irony is that under Roe vs. Wade, it would be perfectly legal to ban late-term abortions.

In 2024, Trump carried the 21 percent of the electorate that identified as Catholics by a 59-39 margin. Very conservative Catholic organizations like Catholic Vote and Catholics for Catholics spent tens of millions of dollars reaching out to Catholics in key states, convincing them how anti-Catholic the Democratic Party and Harris were. The Democrats never once responded; they spent next to nothing. They had one young staff person who had no previous experience organizing or working in the Catholic world.

In March 2024, I was invited with 100 other Catholic leaders and clergy to a St. Patrick’s Day brunch at the White House. In attendance were priests, religious sisters, and leaders of Catholic organizations working to help the poor and marginalized and protect the environment. After the event, a far-right journal published an article titled “Biden Invites Pretend Catholics to White House” [This article has since been taken down from its original source, USSA News—Ed.]. The article was widely shared by conservative Catholic organizations and media. In response, I published an article titled “Pretend Catholics.” I sent both articles to the Harris campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and Catholic leaders in Congress. I suggested they start a campaign to counter this perception that the Democrats are anti-Catholic. I did not receive a single response.

A few months later, Congressman Jim Jordan and the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee demanded information from more than 130 organizations accused of being involved with “the woke ESG cartel Climate Action 100+.” Groups that were threatened with a subpoena included several Catholic organizations such as the Sisters of Mercy. As I wrote in an article at the time, “The Republicans’ anti-Catholic bias is on full display when they refer to Catholic nuns who have dedicated their lives to serving the poor, feeding the hungry, and caring for creation as a ‘woke cartel’ and a ‘climate cartel’ of left-wing environmental activists.” Once again, I sent my article along with a related piece in NCR to the members of the Democratic leadership, and once again I received not a single response.

Twenty-one percent of voters self-identify as Catholic, and the Democratic Party completely ignores and, in many cases, shuns them. They do not spend a penny trying to reach out and understand this voting bloc. They do not have a single staff-person responsible for connecting to this voting bloc. California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Catholic, is currently one of the names mentioned as a potential presidential candidate in 2028. Far-right Catholic groups constantly attack Newsom, claiming he is anti-Catholic because he supports positions like allowing civil marriages for same-sex couples. Yet there is not a peep from the DNC or any leaders in the party. And they wonder why they keep losing elections. ♦

Patrick Carolan is a Catholic activist, organizer, and writer. He served as the Executive director of the Franciscan Action Network for ten years; he co-founded the Global Catholic Climate Movement and Catholics Vote Common Good. His writing and activism are centered on his understanding and belief through Franciscan spirituality of the connectedness of all creation and God.

Image: Martin Schongauer, Altarpiece of the Dominicans, Childhood and Passion of Christ, ca. 1480