New poll shows Latino voters helped Trump win the overall Catholic vote in 2024 election

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 1, 2025 / 09:00 am

Both Latino and white Catholic voters shifted toward President-elect Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, according to the first post-election survey that breaks down Catholic voters by their ethnicities.

Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris with 312 Electoral College votes compared with her 226 Electoral College votes and won the national popular vote by nearly 2.3 million people. Exit polls showed that he won the overall Catholic vote by a double-digit margin on Election Day after losing that demographic to Joe Biden in 2020.

According to a survey published by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in December 2024, a large portion of Trump’s improved performance among Catholics came from Latino voters while a smaller part came from white voters.

The survey was conducted Nov. 8–Dec. 2, 2024, and included a sample of 4,757 adults who said they had voted in the 2024 election. The margin of error for the full sample is +/- 1.9 percentage points.

Large shift from Latino Catholic voters

Although Trump still lost the Latino Catholic vote, the survey suggests a much narrower win for Harris than other Democrats have claimed in recent history. The poll found that Harris won 55% of Latino Catholic voters, with Trump winning 43% of that demographic.

Harris’ 12-point margin of victory among Latino Catholics was much narrower than Biden’s victory among the demographic in 2020. That year, Biden claimed a massive 35-point margin with 66% of the Latino Catholic vote compared with Trump’s 31%, according to the Pew Research Center. If those numbers are accurate, this suggests a 23-point shift in Trump’s favor over just four years.

This is also a large shift from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory with Latino Catholics, which she won by a 59-point margin by securing about 78% of the vote with Trump only winning 19%, according to a separate Pew poll. This suggests a 47-point shift in the president-elect’s favor over eight years.

Trump’s support from Latino Catholic voters in the 2024 election was also much larger than the support received by former Republican nominees in recent years.

Former President Barack Obama won the Latino Catholic vote by a 46-point margin in his 2008 presidential victory and by a larger 54-point margin in his 2012 reelection, according to the Pew Research Center. Former President George W. Bush lost the Latino Catholic vote by 32 points in the 2000 election and in the 2004 election.

Smaller growth among white Catholic voters

Trump’s support from white Catholics also grew in the 2024 election, according to the PRRI survey. 

The president-elect won 59% of the white Catholic vote compared with Harris, who received just 39% of that demographic — a 20-point margin of victory. This was a five-point improvement over his 15-point margin of victory in 2020 when he secured 57% of white Catholic voters compared with Biden’s 42%, according to Pew. 

Trump failed to match his 2016 margin of victory, when he won the white Catholic vote by 64% compared with Clinton’s 31%, based on Pew numbers. In that election, Trump won white Catholics by a larger 33-point margin.

Previous years also showed white Catholic voters supporting Republican nominees. According to Pew numbers, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the white Catholic vote by 19 points in 2012 against Obama. Former Sen. John McCain won the demographic by only five points against Obama in 2008. 

In 2004, Bush won white Catholics by a 13-point margin, and in 2000 he won the demographic by a seven-point margin. 

Trump’s pitch to Catholic voters

During the last few weeks of his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump made a strong push to garner support from Catholic voters.

In a speech, Trump accused Harris of being “destructive to Christianity” and said that Catholics were “treated worse than anybody” by Democrats. He also criticized Harris for skipping the annual Al Smith dinner, which is hosted by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York, calling it “deeply disrespectful to the event and in particular to our great Catholic community.” 

Vice President-elect JD Vance, a convert to Catholicism, said during a speech that many Catholics “rightfully feel abandoned” by Biden and Harris. He also penned an op-ed that accused Harris of having prejudice against Catholics for her record on religious liberty and hostile questions directed toward judicial nominees for being members of the Knights of Columbus.