Vol 5. Iss. 1: History of the Catholic Vote

by Francis Borchardt

It’s that time of year again, midfall, when the attention of the United States turns towards the ballot box. It is the time we get to elect our leaders and supposedly influence our government. Elections have often been places where people vote based on commitments to a larger community base or to specific issues. The trajectory of the Catholic vote in U.S. history can be traced clearly along these lines. I would like to offer a brief analysis of how this group of voters has expressed themselves in elections throughout U.S. history.

When Catholics arrived in America, from the 1830s to 1850s, they did not present a compelling political force because of they were relatively small in number. This changed by the mid 1850s, and certainly by 1860, when a more critical mass of Catholic immigrants arrived in the U.S. from Ireland and Germany. These people were discriminated against first as Catholics and second as foreigners. In earlier elections in which Catholics voted, they voted very much en bloc. The Catholic vote skewed towards the Democratic party primarily because the abolitionist Republican Party carried extreme prejudice against the papists. There was distrust amongst the Republicans that one could hold allegience to both the Pope and the United States. As a result, the Democrats took in the Catholic vote, which is interesting because this party was also anti-abolitionist. Given that early conversations about Catholicism in the United States were also conversations about race, it is important to note that in this case, racial discourses were skewed in a different manner than had happened with slavery and the rights of African- Americans in the United States. In this early phase, then, alliance with the Democratic party had little to do with the moral positions of Catholics in the United States. Most Catholics, with notable exceptions like Orestes Brownson and the Archbishop of Cincinnati, were apathetic to slavery and saw in the Democrats a party that would at least accept them. Some, like Brownson and the Archbishop of Cincinnati, voted Republican because of their commitments to abolitionist movements, though.

During the reconstruction era, the Catholic voting bloc continued its alliance with the Democratic party. Despite the racism of this party, the Democrats were looking out for the rights of Catholics, who had still not found acceptance in the American culture. Republicans still distrusted them, and it was felt overlooked them to help the new freedmen throughout the country. The anti-Catholic sentiment was so strong in the U.S. that even President Grant often made comments about the next big struggle after slavery being the fight between those who believe in superstitions (Catholics) and those who have a rational and democratic religious base.

Strong political alliances with the Democratic party continued through the First World War and into Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency. By this time, through the changes within the Democratic Party, American Catholic allegiance to the party became about a shared social teachings as well as historical acceptance from and voting patterns within the party. Anti-Catholic sentiment amongst Republicans remained strong in this era, though they were still firmly committed to addressing some of the effects of slavery in the United States. The Catholic voting block reached its height under F.D.R.; through the New Deal, Catholics identified a president who was committed to tenents shared in their social teaching and who addressed issues of poverty in their lives.

Partly because of FDR’s success in helping them, and partly because of their history and growth in the U.S., Catholics gained a degree of acceptance in the country after the 1940s. As with many groups who vote according to party affiliation when they are not fully integrated into US culture, assimilation into dominant cultures in the United States diminished the potency of the Catholic vote. There was a small resurgence of bloc voting during Kennedy’s election when American Catholics were confronted with both lingering anti-Catholic sentiments and a signal that this anti- Catholicism was more fleeting than in previous decades. By Kennedy’s time, however, Catholics lost many of the cultural differences that made them distrusted by WASPs. Since then, Catholics have freely voted according to individual beliefs, without regard for party affiliation. They do not largely organize to protect the rights of Catholic voters because they no longer exist as a distinct cultural group. The richest demographic in the U.S. are Irish Catholics, and with full one half of U.S. governors, and one third of both U.S. representatives and senators being Catholic in our own time, it is safe to say that Catholics have arrived. The most interesting part is that these Catholics reside on both sides of the political aisle.