In totally unsurprising news today, Donald Trump is polling at about zero percent with black people in Ohio and Pennsylvania. That is to be expected!
What is less surprising though, sorta, is that he is doing really, really, really badly with Catholics. A current Pew poll shows Clinton having a 17-point lead among Catholic voters, which, let us just say -- is YUGE.
In the last two elections, at least, Catholics have been split pretty much down the middle, with a slight lean towards Obama -- probably depending on whether they're more concerned about abortion or helping poor people. Obama got 49 percent of the Catholic vote in 2012, and Romney got 47 percent.
Trump's particularly poor Catholic showing is likely due to the fact that a lot of Catholic voters are Latino, and Trump is not exactly popular with them! I would also like to think that maybe it is due to other Catholic voters, who come from Catholic families, realizing that it is highly unlikely that their relatives were warmly greeted when they first came over here, given the very strong anti-Catholic sentiment during the first half of the last century, and deciding to have some empathy for newer immigrant families instead of pulling the ladder up behind them. Not holding my breath, because Trump's only 2 points behind Romney's 2012 share of white Catholic voters, but it would be nice!
Trump is also not doing quite as well with voters who attend religious services regularly either -- he's polling at about 49 percent with them, with Clinton at 45%. Comparatively, Romney had a 15 point lead with regular churchgoers at this time in 2012. And hell, he belonged to a religion half of them think is a weird cult.
But hey! It's possible Trump could still win even if black people, Latinos, Catholics and women don't wanna vote for him! Just as long as that whole "silent majority" thing happens, and millions of white evangelical men, never counted by the census, are hiding out in an underground bunker somewhere, ready to vote when the time is right.
[ Pew Forum ]
I recall 1980 and the long downward slide that came after. Complacency is the last thing we need this year.
So the majority of my family is Catholic, and (surprisingly) most of them are (grudgingly) going with Hillz. The reasoning is twofold. First, we live in Michigan, and they see ths walking talking melanoma as a threat to unions. 2nd, because of the new Pope. My aunt said "I just can't see Pope Francis supporting Trump" because the Pope is so humble and concerned for the poor, and the dead opossum wearing orange shit stain is, well, not.