Undecided Catholic voters a dependable but swing voting bloc, report finds
A Network-commissioned report found undecided Catholic voters usually turn out to vote but are unpredictable in their candidate choices; only 4% said they had skipped all of the past three presidential elections. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they had voted for both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, suggesting openness to candidates and solutions from both parties. Most participants in the report’s focus groups lived in Michigan, a battleground state with a closely contested Senate race. A recent Pew survey found Catholic voters divided over congressional candidates, with notable differences between white and Hispanic Catholics.
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Undecided Catholic voters surveyed for a new report were highly likely to vote but difficult to predict: many had supported both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and respondents cited economic concerns, health care and issues affecting older adults as important. The findings are based on focus-group participants identified as Catholic and undecided; most lived in Michigan. 1
Untold Research conducted the report for Network, a Catholic social justice lobby. Only 4% of the Catholic respondents who described themselves as undecided or uncommitted said they had not voted in any of the previous three presidential elections. 1
Nearly three-quarters said they had voted for both Obama and Donald Trump. Network Executive Director Laurie Carafone said the pattern of crossing party lines suggested these voters were open to proposals from both parties. 1
Economic issues influenced the decisions of 80% of respondents, followed by health care at 78% and issues affecting older adults at 77%. Carafone said respondents were concerned about matters including feeding families, caring for loved ones, and securing decent jobs with fair wages. 1
Respondents who attended Mass more frequently tended to decide later how to vote and reported greater religious influence on their views. The report also found they leaned more Republican and were more likely to identify family and children’s issues, immigration and race as important. 1
A separate Pew Research Center survey found that, among Catholics overall, 42% said they would vote for the Democratic candidate in their House district, 39% for the Republican, and 19% were unsure or preferred another party’s candidate. Preferences differed by ethnicity: white Catholics favored Republicans, 50% to 32%, while Hispanic Catholics favored Democrats, 59% to 19%; the remainder in each group were unsure. 1
The midterm elections were scheduled for Nov. 3. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said participation in public life, including voting, is both a right and a responsibility. 1*
Catholic political discernment between faith commitments and partisan loyalties
Catholic political discernment asks you to put the demands of faith before loyalty to a party, candidate, or political camp—without withdrawing from political life or assuming that the Church prescribes one complete political platform. The goal is to judge public choices by their effects on human dignity and the common good, using a conscience formed by Catholic teaching and applied with prudence.
For Catholics, civic engagement is not separate from discipleship. The Church calls the faithful to participate in public life—as voters, citizens, and, for some, public servants—because political decisions affect people and the common good. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith describes such participation as a proper task of the laity: bringing Christian moral convictions into society while respecting the legitimate autonomy of political institutions.
That participation should not be reduced to party loyalty. The U.S. bishops caution that politics can become a contest of interests and partisan attacks, and insist that Catholics should be guided more by moral convictions than by attachment to a party or interest group. Party membership may be a legitimate way to work for public goods; it cannot require a Catholic to abandon fundamental moral truths. Indeed, Catholics may sometimes have reason to challenge or help change their own party rather than allow it to shape their conscience.
This does not mean treating politics as a substitute for faith or as a contest in which the Church seeks political control. The Church’s role, the CDF explains, is to illuminate consciences and offer moral judgment when faith or moral law requires it—not to eliminate Catholics’ freedom to choose among morally acceptable political approaches.
A well-formed conscience is more than a strong feeling, personal preference, or party conviction. The bishops describe conscience as a judgment of reason about whether an action is right or wrong. It does not make an action right simply because someone sincerely approves of it; Catholics have a responsibility to learn Church teaching, understand the issues, and seek sound information before judging.
That formation matters because faith concerns public responsibilities as well as private conduct. The CDF rejects the idea that a Catholic can maintain a spiritual life on one side and a morally unrelated “secular” life on the other. Public decisions, like decisions in family and work, are places where Christian commitments are to be lived.
The bishops also warn against allowing fear, anger, slander, and partisan hostility to govern political engagement. They recommend prayer, Scripture, time away from political media, service to people in need, and attention to candidates’ character and integrity as well as their positions. These practices do not replace analysis of policy; they help keep political judgment connected to Christian charity and truth.
Catholic political judgment involves both non-negotiable moral boundaries and prudential judgments. Some actions or policies directly violate fundamental moral principles; Catholics should not knowingly, willingly, and directly support legislation or policies that undermine those principles. The bishops also say that when unjust laws already exist, the path toward greater justice may require prudential steps that reduce harm, even if they do not immediately achieve the full goal.
Other serious questions—such as how best to address housing, health care, immigration, or armed conflict—require applying moral principles to complicated facts and choosing among possible policies. Faithful Catholics may sometimes reach different conclusions about these means. The CDF explains that the complexity of political problems and the variety of strategies can permit more than one morally acceptable approach; that legitimate pluralism does not mean that every moral principle or policy is equally compatible with human dignity.
Nor can a Catholic reduce the whole of social teaching to whichever issue a party emphasizes most. The bishops caution that focusing on one isolated part of Catholic social doctrine does not exhaust responsibility for the common good. They identify threats to human life and dignity across a range of concerns—including abortion, euthanasia, violence, poverty, migration, racism, religious freedom, and care for creation—while describing abortion as a pre-eminent priority because of its direct attack on vulnerable human life. That priority should be taken seriously, but it does not make other grave concerns irrelevant.
A candidate’s position matters, but discernment is not simply a search for someone who agrees with you on every question. The bishops call Catholics to consider candidates’ positions and their character and integrity. They also acknowledge that political decisions are complex and require prudence. A sound assessment therefore looks at what a candidate proposes, what the proposals would likely do, how the candidate would exercise public responsibility, and how the choices bear on the common good and the protection of vulnerable people.
The Church’s teaching does not, on the evidence available here, supply a universal formula for ranking every candidate or issue in every election. The bishops explicitly say that they do not tell the laity to vote for particular candidates; forming the conscience and making prudent judgments in concrete circumstances are responsibilities of the faithful. Their guidance on particular policy applications also does not carry the same moral authority as universal moral teaching.
That freedom is not permission to ignore Catholic teaching. It is a responsibility to apply it honestly. A voter should not excuse a grave moral wrong merely because the preferred party commits or tolerates it, nor assume that a candidate’s label or rhetoric guarantees that the candidate will advance the common good. Faithful discernment evaluates actions, policies, likely consequences, and moral principles—not just partisan identity.
Before making a political choice, you can ask:
The central discipline is to remain politically engaged without letting political identity become a substitute for Catholic moral judgment. A Catholic may belong to a party, support a candidate, or disagree with other Catholics about prudential means. But faith commitments must remain the standard by which those loyalties are tested—not the other way around.