As the US election gets ever closer in time and looks set to be no less close in terms of what will decide who wins it, there are increasing signs that Kamala Harris’s treatment of US Catholics could come back to haunt her when the nation goes to the polls on 5 November.
The current US Vice President is “facing the wrath of Catholic voters after years of public hostility towards them”, <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/10/05/us-news/kamala-harris-years-of-public-smears-snubs-to-catholics-leaves-her-underwater-with-critical-voting-bloc/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">reports</mark></a> the <em>New York Post</em>. At the same time, her opponent, former President Donald Trump, has been openly courting the Catholic vote and <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/trump-warns-of-anti-religious-democrat-policies-theyre-really-after-the-catholics/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">warning that the Democratic Party is openly anti-Catholic</mark></a>.
“Kamala’s definitely been impacted negatively by a lack of support from Catholic voters,” Ryan Girdusky, a GOP strategist and Catholic, is quoted by the <em>Post</em>. “She’s polling worse than Joe Biden among a very important demographic. They are the largest single church in America, the Catholic vote will help decide the presidency.”
Based on a 2023 Gallup poll, a relatively whopping 22 per cent of the US population identify as Catholic. A September survey by the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/09/white-protestants-and-catholics-support-trump-but-voters-in-other-us-religious-groups-prefer-harris/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Pew Research Center</mark></a> showed Harris garnering support among 47 per cent of Catholic voters, versus 52 per cent for Trump. It might not seem much, but it could be enough to swing such an apparently tight election.
Also, the <em>Post</em> highlights, those numbers were exactly flipped in 2020 when Joe Biden, a Catholic, beat Donald Trump, according to exit polling <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2020/exit-polls/presidential-election-exit-polls/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">from the <em>Washington Post</em></mark>.</a> When Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016, it was by 45 per cent to 52 per cent when it came to Catholics.
Presently, almost a quarter of voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania identify as Catholic, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/religious-tradition/catholic/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">according to the Pew study</mark>.</a> Other critical states like Nevada and Michigan are 25 per cent and 18 per cent Catholic respectively. Arizona, another swing state, is 21 per cent Catholic.
Last month, New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan chided Harris for turning down the Archdiocese of New York’s annual Al Smith Dinner, which has been a regular fixture during campaign time for candidates from both parties.
<a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/donald-trump-and-cardinal-dolan-respond-to-kamala-harris-turning-down-catholic-fundraising-dinner/"><strong><em><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">RELATED: Trump and NYC’s Cardinal Dolan react to Harris turning down renowned Catholic fundraiser dinner</mark></em></strong></a>
Harris’s seemingly fraught relationship with Catholics stretches back to December 2018, the <em>Post</em> highlights, when Harris – who is Baptist and married to a Jewish man – and then serving in the Senate as a member of the Judiciary Committee, grilled Brian Buescher, a judicial nominee for the US District Court in Nebraska, about his membership of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal and charitable organisation.
“Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organisation?” <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Buescher%20Responses%20to%20QFRs.pdf"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">she interrogated</mark></a>. “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when you joined the organisation?”
The Biden-Harris administration, which one US-based <em>Herald</em> columnist has <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-aggressive-absurdities-of-us-presidential-politics-hit-catholics-hardest/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">described</mark></a> as "the most aggressive anti-Catholic administration ever known", has targeted traditional Catholics, <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/new-report-details-extent-fbis-weaponization-law-enforcement-against"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">according to a report</mark></a> from the House Judiciary Committee.
“The FBI singled out Americans who are pro-life, pro-family, and support the biological basis for sex and gender distinction as potential domestic terrorists,” the findings concluded, with the <em>Post</em> noting that the organisation even tried to turn “Catholic clergy and church leadership” into informants.
<a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/fbi-spied-on-traditionalist-u-s-catholics-from-coast-to-coast-new-evidence-reveals/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><em><strong>RELATED: FBI spied on traditionalist U.S. Catholics from coast to coast, new evidence reveals</strong></em></mark></a>
Today, 7 October, is the last day for voters in Texas to register for the 5 November election, as it is in various States (deadlines vary among all 50 states though typically are within the last 30 days before the election). Catholic Texans in the Diocese of Austin who went to Mass the day before on Sunday 6 October were reminded of their political responsibilities.
“As we prepare for the upcoming elections, we can use Catholic social teaching to form our consciousness,” Bishop Joe Vásquez commented in the newsletter at Saint Mary's Cathedral in the heart of the State capital. “We must study the candidates and the issues, and with the help of these teachings, determine how the candidates align with our faith.”
After Mass, some St Mary's parishioners handed around "2024 Catholic Voter's Guide" leaflets from the organisation Catholics for Catholics. The guide listed “key principles” to apply when it came to deciding who to vote for, as well as “The Non-Negotiables”: 1. Right to Life / 2. Right to worship / 3. Rights of parents / 4. Socialism/Marxism.
A cursory look at the Catholics for Catholics <a href="https://cforc.com/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">website</mark></a> doesn't reveal a great deal about its backers, though there is a striking yard sign on sale ($30) depicting the slogan “St Michael the Archangel, Defend us in Battle” alongside the iconic image of Donald Trump with his fist in the air after an assassin's bullet clipped his ear.
There is no yard sign for Kamla Harris on offer. But whether the organisation is or isn't connected to or funded by the Trump campaign arguably becomes a moot point. It would be rather odd for a Catholic organisation to promote a yard sign for Kamala Harris in this election. And therein lies Harris’s and the Democratic Party's potentially very significant problem.
<a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/no-jews-please-were-democrats/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><strong><em>RELATED: No Jews or Catholics, please, we’re Democrats and have a cynical election campaign to run</em></strong></mark></a>
<em>Photo: Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a rally at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Michigan, USA, 4 October 2024. Harris had two campaign stops in Michigan as she goes head-to-head with Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump who held a an event in the swing state the day before. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.)</em>
