Since 1972, every single presidential candidate who has won the popular vote has also won the Catholic vote. But with Catholics making up one in every four voters, pinning down what exactly the Catholic vote is becomes tricky.
Catholics no longer reliably vote for any one party, but historically, they have voted Democratic. In 1928, the first Catholic ran for president: Democrat Al Smith lost to Herbert Hoover. Dr. Robert Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, told weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that the link between Catholics and Democrats has to do with their position in the workforce.
“Part of it really is this alignment between the labor union movement and Catholics, who were really, up until the ’70s, still really concentrated in Catholic enclaves in bigger cities; still working class … in manufacturing jobs,” he says.
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