The Catholic vote went 54% to Obama.
Maybe some of that was due to the Hispanic vote going heavily for him, on the grounds of a friendlier immigration policy?
But looking closer at the figures, it is perhaps not as rebellious as it seems:
While Obama won the Catholic vote overall 54% - 45%, among Catholics who attend mass every week, McCain won 55% - 43%. Clearly the main reason Obama succeeded overall was the fact that Catholic voters echoed the concerns of the rest of the electorate in citing the economy as their top issue..
I think Biden was chosen as VP candidate partly to appeal to conservative southern Catholic voters, which is his own background.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the Bible belt in general has been something of a swing vote in recent years. Clinton managed to get their vote, and Obama worked hard to get the same swing vote (and presumably succeeded, hence the dramatic change from red to blue in a number of States.)
Well, I take it as somewhat encouraging that, if you take "serious" Catholics as being those who do attend church weekly, they still didn't go for Obama/Biden.
ReplyDelete