Harris heavily favored over Trump among Hispanic Catholic voters, EWTN News/RealClear poll finds

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 5, 2024 / 12:05 pm

Hispanic Catholics are nearly twice as likely to support Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris over the Republican nominee, former president Donald Trump, according to a new poll by EWTN News and RealClear Opinion Research.

Released on Sept. 5, the EWTN News/RealClear poll takes a deep dive into Catholic religious and political practices across the U.S. The poll, conducted from Aug. 28-30, surveyed 1,000 Catholics and has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.

The study found that 59.4% of Hispanic Catholics plan to vote for Harris in November versus 30.4% who intend to vote for Trump.

Nine percent of Hispanic Catholics said they were still undecided and 1.2% said they would vote for another candidate besides Harris or Trump.

The EWTN News poll suggests that Catholic Hispanic support for Harris is slightly above the support President Joe Biden received in 2020, with 54.9% of respondents saying they voted for Biden in the last presidential election.

Meanwhile, undecided Hispanic voters were nearly evenly split with 48.9% leaning toward Harris and 51.1% leaning toward Trump.

Just over three-fourths — 77.2% — of Hispanics said it is very likely they will cast a vote in the presidential election.

What do Hispanic Catholics think about the issues?

A slight majority — 43.2% — of Hispanic Catholics said they approve of the job Biden is doing as president, while 41% said they disapproved and 15.8% said they had no opinion.

Most Hispanic Catholics — 56.8% — said that the economy (including jobs, inflation, and interest rates) is the most important issue deciding their vote this election cycle. The next highest priorities were border security/immigration at 10.5%, abortion at 9.7%, health care at 5.3%, and climate change at 5%.

When asked “Who should be responsible for setting abortion policy: state legislatures, the federal government, or neither?”, 29% responded that abortion is a state issue, 28.9% said federal, and 42% said neither.

No Hispanic Catholics registered that “advancing LGBTQ rights” was a priority and 45.7% said they do not support transgender cross-sex hormonal treatments or surgical procedures for children. Meanwhile, 16.5% said they support cross-sex hormones and surgeries for minors. The vast majority — 63.4% — of Hispanics said that male-born athletes identifying as females should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports.

Hispanic Catholics and their faith

More than a quarter of Hispanic Catholics — 27.5% — said they accept all the Church’s teachings and that these beliefs are reflected in their lives.

Thirty-five percent of Hispanic Catholics said they believe in most of the Church’s teachings, 22% said they disagree with some of the Church’s key teachings, and 15.5% said the faith plays only a minor role in their lives.

Similarly, the survey found that 37.2% of Hispanic Catholics attend Mass once a week or more, while 41.8% only attend once or a few times a year.

Well over half — 63.5% — of Hispanic Catholics go to confession at least once a year, with almost a fifth — 17.5% — going at least once a month.

Critically, half of Hispanic Catholics — 49.7% — believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist while nearly a third — 29.5% — believe that the Eucharist is merely a symbol and a fifth — 20.8% — are not sure. These numbers are roughly equivalent to the overall national average found by the EWTN News survey for Catholics in general.

This comes amid a historic initiative called the National Eucharistic Revival, launched by the U.S. bishops to increase awareness of and devotion to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This summer the bishops helped to coordinate a National Eucharistic Pilgrimage and Eucharistic Congress, both of which saw heavy participation of Hispanic Catholics and several Hispanic-majority dioceses.  

The U.S. bishops have also recently published a Hispanic national pastoral plan setting goals for new efforts to evangelize Latino Catholics, who make up an increasingly large portion of the U.S. Church.