Beliefnet’s Steve Waldman:
With all the attention on evangelicals, we shouldn’t lose site of this: Democrats this election have won back the Catholic vote. In 2004, President Bush beat John Kerry among Catholics 52%-47%. The exit polls for the House races show Catholics going 57%-42% for the Democrats. In all likelihood this has little to do with social issues but rather illustrates Catholic dissatisfaction with the Iraq war.
(That last sentence might actually be from David Kuo rather than Waldman. Can’t tell from the blog post.)
Collin noted earlier that it’s best to compare 2006 to 2002 rather than to 2004. I’ll look around for the Catholic numbers from that year.
Update: The Pew Research Center says there’s a 12 percentage point change among white non-Hispanic Catholics since 2002. For total Catholics, it’s 9 percentage points. The white evangelical change is 11 percentage points.
