Tipsheet
Premium

Supposedly 'Devout Catholic' President Biden Won't Be Too Happy With These Poll Results

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  May 03, 2024 4:15 PM

It's no secret that President Joe Biden and those close to him are concerned with his poor standing in the polls. Former and potentially future President Donald Trump holds a lead overall when it comes to the November election, as well as in key battleground states. It's also been interesting to see how Biden's standing has been with key demographics, which isn't great. As Democratic strategist James Carville has warned and complained about, Biden doesn't look to have the support of his 2020 coalition. Another problem area for the president is his standing with Catholics. When it suits him, Biden and his supporters like to claim he's a supposedly "devout Catholic."

Fox News highlighted the release of a recent poll from Pew Research, which now finds that Catholics support Trump over Biden by 55-43 percent. Pew Research's write-up highlighted how "Voters’ views of Trump and Biden differ sharply by religion." It's particularly significant that Biden's lost members of his own religion, though. 

Trump's lead among white Catholics is even stronger, in that he has the support of 61 percent of the demographic. He enjoys more support over Biden whether they go to church regularly or not. Among white Catholics who attend church monthly or more, Trump's lead over Biden is 64-34 percent. Among white Catholics who attend church less often or never, Trump still leads, 59-40 percent over Biden.

While Biden has more support among Hispanic Catholics, it's only a plurality, and again, it's narrow, as 49 percent of this group supports the current president, compared to the 47 percent who support Trump. 

The results are telling, especially when it comes to the bad news it spells for the deeply unpopular incumbent president. However, we've seen and examined before how other polls show Hispanics overall are among those key demographics that once helped the president but are now turning on Biden. 

Recommended

UPDATE: Everything We Know So Far About Christian School Shooting in WI Matt Vespa
Will Trump Pardon NYC Mayor Eric Adams? Here's What the President-Elect Had to Say. Jeff Charles

Nevertheless, when it comes to how those views "differ sharply," this Pew Research poll does show that while Trump has the support from white Christians, Biden has the support from black Protestants and those without a religious affiliation, at 77-18 percent over Trump and 69-28 percent over Trump, respectively.

Trump's support among white evangelicals, who fall into the Protestant category, whether they are regular churchgoers or not, is particularly high. Eighty-one percent of white Evangelicals support Trump, which includes 84 percent of regular churchgoers and 77 percent of white evangelicals who say they don’t go to church regularly.

"Among Christians, support for Trump is somewhat higher among regular church attenders than non-churchgoers. Overall, 62% of Christian voters who say they go to church at least once or twice a month support Trump over Biden. Among Christians who go to church less often, 55% would vote for Trump if the election were today," the Pew Research write-up mentioned. 

Even with Biden's support over Trump among demographics like black Protestants, that doesn't mean they're particularly sold on the current president. 

While 47 percent of overall voters think that Trump was a "poor" (12 percent) or "terrible" president (35 percent), 42 percent think he was a "great" (20 percent) or "good" (22 percent). Meanwhile, 50 percent consider Biden to be a "poor" (16 percent) or "terrible" (34 percent) president.

When it comes to the demographics discussed at length above, 74 percent of white evangelical voters say Trump was either a "great" or "good" president, with 34 percent saying so for each descriptor.  A majority of them, at 62 percent, meanwhile say Biden's been a "terrible" president.

A plurality of Biden's fellow Catholics, at 35 percent, think Biden has been a "terrible" president, with another 17 percent saying he's been "poor." The plurality of Catholics who think Trump was a "terrible" president, is much slimmer, at 27 percent, with a similar 24 percent saying he was a "good" president. Catholics are more likely to say Trump's been a "great" (22 percent) or "good" president, with 46 percent saying so, compared to the 40 percent who think he's been "poor" (13 percent) or "terrible" (27 percent). Further, a majority of the president's fellow Catholics, at 52 percent, think that he's been a "poor" (17 percent) or "terrible" (35 percent) president.

There's also differences between white, non-Hispanic Catholics and Hispanic Catholics. A strong plurality of white Catholics, at 41 percent, say Biden has been a "terrible" president, while a smaller plurality of Hispanic Catholics, at 32 percent, say he's been "average." 

While 71 percent of black Protestants think that Trump was a "poor" or "terrible," president, and a majority, at 51 percent, think he was terrible, a not insignificant 35 percent think Biden's just been "average." Forty-nine percent of this demographic says Biden has been "great" (13 percent) or "good" (36 percent).

The poll was conducted April 8-14. 

Such a release comes as Biden has been in the news not just in recent years, but increasingly in recent weeks for how his positions on issues such as abortion and gender ideology are in direct contradiction with the Catholic Church. In September 2021, Biden claimed "those who believe life begins at the moment of conception and all. I respect that. Don't agree, but I respect that." He then claimed "I'm not going to impose that on people," despite how he abandoned his support for the Hyde Amendment when he was running in the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary. That means he does support "impos[ing]" his views on others, in this case by forcing them to fund elective abortions with their tax dollars.

When it comes to those more recent examples, Pope Francis last month released an official document calling out gender theory for the threat to human dignity that it is. Yet Biden supports the genital mutilation and sterilization of minor children that comes with so-called gender affirming care. 

Just weeks ago, late last month, Biden also came under fire for crossing himself at a pro-abortion event in Florida to rant and rave against the state's pro-life laws while trying to gin up support for himself and a pro-abortion ballot initiative. 

Even more liberal Catholic leaders, such as Pope Francis and Washington, D.C.'s Wilton Cardinal Gregory, aren't too thrilled with Biden. While appearing on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on March 31 for the episode that appeared on Easter this year, Gregory referred to Biden as a "cafeteria Catholic."

"I would say that he's very sincere about his faith. But like a number of Catholics, he picks and chooses dimensions of the faith to highlight while ignoring or even contradicting other parts. There is a phrase that we have used in the past, a ‘cafeteria Catholic’ — you choose that which is attractive, and dismiss that which is challenging," he said. "Especially in terms of the life issues, there are things that he chooses to ignore or he uses the current situation as a political pawn."

That's not the most positive ways to describe someone who has presented himself as a supposedly "devout Catholic."