Candidates’ supporters court Catholic voters in Pennsylvania

Nationally, Catholic voters have been closely divided in recent presidential elections. This year, in the vital state of Pennsylvania, they’ll likely comprise at least a quarter of the electorate—and thus play a pivotal role in deciding the overall outcome.

There’s been a see-saw effect in the state. Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by about 44,000 votes in 2016; Joe Biden defeated Trump by 80,000 votes in 2020.

John Fea, a history professor at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, said he believed Biden—an Irish-American Catholic and regular Mass-goer—connected with some Catholics as being one of their own.

“I don’t think most working-class Catholics thought Biden was a perfect candidate, but he was one of them,” said Fea, who studies the interaction of religion and politics.

Now Trump, a nondenominational Christian, is back atop the Republican ticket, with JD Vance—a Catholic—as his running mate.

The Democrats have a ticket without a Catholic, headed by Kamala Harris, who is of Black and South Asian heritage and is from a Baptist tradition with a strong social-justice orientation, and running mate in Tim Walz, a white Lutheran.

Fea said some voters in the counties around Scranton, where Biden was born, may have voted for him in 2020 because of the Catholic connection but might not vote for Harris.

“You could make an argument that as goes those counties ... so goes Pennsylvania, so goes the nation,” Fea said.

As an ardent opponent of abortion, Nikki Bruni of Pittsburgh says she could never vote for Harris. Trump has her vote even though she’s dismayed he’s backing away from the GOP’s traditionally staunch opposition.

“I did consider not voting, but Pennsylvania is a swing state,” said Bruni, who directs People Concerned for the Unborn Child, a local anti-abortion group. “I have to do what I can morally to keep the evil from taking over completely.”

For Catholics supporting Harris, there’s a similar sense of urgency—that in a state where more than a quarter of voters in 2020 were Catholic, the entire election might hinge on a handful of their fellow believers.