Prior to the election I posed the question Will the Catholic Vote Impact Election 2016? The dust has settled and now we can take a look at some numbers and answer that question. In contrast to the 2008 and 2012, when Republican presidential candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama among Catholic voters, Donald Trump won the Catholic vote in 2016, according to the national exit poll published by CNN.

A healthy twenty-three percent of all voters in this year’s presidential election were Catholic. Of this total, President-Elect Donald Trump took 52 percent of the vote while Hillary Clinton took 45 percent. The remaining 3 percent of Catholic voters said they voted for another candidate or gave no answer.

Comparing those numbers to 2012 when 25 percent of the voters were Catholic. President Barack Obama took 50 percent of these voters and Romney took 48 percent. In 2008 27 percent of the voters were Catholic. In that election cycle Obama took 54 percent versus McCain’s 45 percent. Looking at the numbers overall Trump outperformed both McCain and Romney when it came to the Catholic vote.

The White Catholic vote leaned heavy Trump as well. Normally a Republican voting bloc, Trump won it by an impressive 23 percent, four percentage points higher than Romney in 2012. That number is also the highest spread since before the 2000 election. One bloc of the Catholic vote Trump did not win however was the Hispanic vote. Not unexpectedly he lost them by 67 percent to 26 percent.

The answer to our question is yes, indeed the Catholic vote has impacted the 2016 election. Further analysis of this voting block reveals an interesting truth. From Dr. Mark Gray of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University: “Catholics continue to be the only major religious voting block that can shift from one election to the next. This is what makes the Catholic vote such an important swing vote. Presidential candidates who win the Catholic vote almost always win the presidency.”

Historically Catholics vary in their party allegiance but tend to vote for the winning party in an election. “No other major religious group does this,” Dr. Gray emphasized. “Other Christians reliably vote majority Republican. Those of non-Christian affiliations or no religious affiliation vote consistently Democrat.”