(The Lion) — More American Catholics now disapprove of the Democratic Party than approve of it, a new poll shows, a stunning reversal for the party that elected the nation’s first Catholic President in 1960 and has long favored “the working man.”
Just months after Joe Biden, the second Catholic President, left office, a poll conducted for the League of American Workers found only 31% of Catholics approved of Democrats while 56% disapproved.
The 25% gap is even more shocking when compared with ratings for the Republican Party.
The April 7-9 poll of over 1,500 voters found Republicans enjoyed a 44% approval rating and a 46% disapproval rating – 13 and 10 points better than Democrats, respectively.
Steve Cortes, who leads the center-right worker league, called it “an absolute crisis collapse” for Democrats among American Catholics. He blamed the party’s embrace of leftist policies.
“For many decades, Catholics formed an absolute foundational base of the Democrats, from northern city political machines to Al Smith to John F. Kennedy,” Cortes wrote in an article announcing the findings.
“But the Democrats of today would find no place for a JFK or a Tip O’Neill. Instead, it has devolved into a party of open borders, globalist trade policies, constant warfighting abroad, and cultural Marxism that elevates the most fringe aspects of human perversion into some sort of faux noble cause.”
This shift helps explain the party’s dismal results in the last election, in which Donald Trump won all seven swing states, including the “northern three” states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, which each have large Catholic populations.
“But even outside of swing states, Trump rolled up an incredible +11% margin among Catholics nationwide, a giant improvement over his tie among Catholics in 2020,” Cortes added. “Trump does not win the popular vote without his dominant performance among Catholics.”
A pro-immigration stance failed to sway Catholic voters, who instead “rallied fervently to President Trump and his Catholic running mate, J.D. Vance, who insisted on border security,” Cortes wrote. “They delivered a mandate to deport millions of illegal aliens who trespassed into our country, many with the overt permission of the supposedly devoutly Catholic Joe Biden.”
The poll also found Catholics support mass deportation at a rate higher than most Americans, with 59% in favor compared to 55% of Americans at-large. When asked about illegal migrants with a criminal record, 81% of Catholics supported deportation.
Cortes calls it a “massive realignment.”
“The Democratic Party of yesteryear was so closely identified with Catholicism that anti-Democrat political messaging often carried explicitly bigoted anti-Catholic themes!” he wrote.
“But now, Catholics reject the radicalism of the 2020s Democrats. Instead, millions of us now find an invigorating political home in the patriotic populism of the America First movement.”
Readers reacted positively to the news on social media, expressing hope that more states could go Republican.
“Especially in states like New Jersey. @realDonaldTrump only lost by 4 points there,” posted Evan Herman. “Heavily Catholic & working class states like NJ & NM are within striking distance of turning red.”
Many Catholics said they rejected Democrats for supporting abortion.
“Im a Catholic, democrats are baby killers,” wrote another X user. “I could never vote for that. Unions almost always gave to democrats, baby killers.”
Bill Finerfrock summed up how things have changed over time.
“When I was growing up in the 60s, there were two pictures hanging just inside our front door- JFK and the Pope,” he posted. “By the mid 70s, both my parents were voting for GOP candidates.”
