Pew midterm poll: Catholics prefer Democratic House candidates by 3-point margin
A Pew survey found Catholic voters prefer Democratic candidates for the U.S. House by 42% to 39% ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. White Catholics favored Republicans, 50% to 32%, while Hispanic Catholics favored Democrats, 59% to 19%. Catholic approval of President Donald Trump fell to 30%, while 67% disapproved of his job performance. Among all registered voters, 44% favored Democratic House candidates and 36% favored Republicans.
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Catholic voters surveyed narrowly favored Democratic candidates for the U.S. House, but preferences differed sharply between white and Hispanic Catholics. The poll also found low approval of President Donald Trump among Catholics, with disapproval especially high among Hispanic Catholics.
Catholics preferred Democratic House candidates by 42% to 39%, a 3-point margin, ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Among white Catholics, 50% planned to vote Republican and 32% Democratic; among Hispanic Catholics, 59% favored Democrats and 19% Republicans.
Across all registered voters, 44% favored Democrats for the House and 36% Republicans. The poll reported that white evangelical Protestants and white Catholics were more likely to support Republicans, while Black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, atheists, agnostics, and people with no particular religion were more likely to support Democrats.
Among Catholics, 30% approved of Trump’s job performance and 67% disapproved, compared with about 47% approval in January 2025. Approval was 39% among white Catholics and 18% among Hispanic Catholics; disapproval was 59% and 78%, respectively. Across all registered voters, Trump’s approval was also 30%, while 68% disapproved.
Pew surveyed 5,062 adults, including 3,917 registered voters, from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4 through its American Trends Panel. The survey’s stated margin of error was plus or minus 1.6 percentage points.
Catholic voting reveals tensions between faith and partisan identity
The headline points to a real tension: Catholics may identify strongly with a political party, but Catholic teaching says political identity should be judged and shaped by faith—not the reverse. The supplied material does not include polling data or the article’s specific findings, so it cannot establish how widespread any voting pattern is.
The bishops’ guidance does not reduce voting to a single issue or party. Catholics should weigh candidates’ positions across issues affecting human life and dignity, as well as their integrity, record, and ability to act; they should look beyond party affiliation. At the same time, the bishops say some moral questions carry particular weight: a Catholic may not vote for a candidate with the intention of supporting a policy promoting an intrinsically evil act, such as abortion or euthanasia. They also warn against using opposition to such an act as an excuse to ignore other serious concerns about human life and dignity.
The guidance allows a difficult judgment in limited circumstances. A voter who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position on an intrinsically evil act may nevertheless vote for that candidate for other truly grave moral reasons—but not merely to advance partisan preference or narrow interests. If every candidate holds such a position, the bishops describe more than one possible response after careful deliberation, including not voting for any candidate or choosing the candidate judged less likely to advance the evil and more likely to pursue other genuine human goods.
Thus, the tension is not simply “faith versus politics.” It is whether party loyalty, candidate preference, or a single favored issue is displacing a conscience formed by the whole of Catholic moral teaching. The bishops describe Catholic participation in political parties as something that should be influenced by faith, rather than allowing partisan identity to determine how faith is understood. A scholarly analysis likewise criticizes separating private moral opposition from public political support for policies one regards as gravely wrong, while arguing that Catholics need not hide religious reasons for their political judgments.