Print friendly
New polling from Gallup suggests that it’s Catholics who could well be the best bellwether of whether President Obama or former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney will be elected president this November.
Among Catholic registered voters, Obama and Romney each took 46 percent in 19 days worth of Gallup tracking polls between April 11 and April 30. The numbers among Catholics were a virtual mirror image of the head to head matchup among all registered voters where Obama took 46 percent to Romney’s 45 percent over that same time period.
It’s not just this presidential election where the Catholic vote serves as a leading indicator of the national vote.
In the five presidential races prior to this one, the candidate who carried the Catholic vote won four of them. The lone exception was in 2000 when then Vice President Al Gore won the Catholic vote by two points (and the popular vote by .5 percent) but lost the presidency to then Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
In fact, in the last two presidential contests the Catholic vote has tracked almost exactly with the popular vote. In 2008, President Obama carried Catholics by nine points and beat Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) by seven points nationally. Four years earlier, Bush won the Catholic vote by five points and beat Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (D) by three points nationwide.
In each of the past five presidential elections, Catholics have comprised somewhere between 26 percent and 29 percent of the overall electorate.
As Gallup’s Frank Newport notes, Catholics have historically been a Democratic-leaning constituency but in recent decades have become more of a toss-up voting bloc.
In the past eight presidential elections the Republican nominee has carried Catholics four times, the Democratic nominee has carried Catholics four times.
Keep an eye on the Catholic vote between now and November. How it goes will tell you a lot about who is going to be the next president.
Source Gallup, Washington Post
Image New Jersey.com
Related Posts:
News category: World.
