Catholics long were a bulwark of the Democratic Party. This allegiance crystalized in the 1884 election in which James Blaine and the Republicans smeared opponent Grover Cleveland’s Democrats as the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,†referring to alcohol legality, Catholic churches, and former Confederate support. The phrase badly backfired on Blaine, making Cleveland president and creating a solid Catholic voting bloc for Democrats for a century.
Today, Catholic Americans are a pivotal swing voter group, with incredible success in deciding national winners. This bloc was especially determinative in 2016 when working-class Catholics in the Midwest, many of whom had voted twice for President Obama, flocked across the aisle and delivered Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin for Donald Trump. In fact, Trump won the Catholic vote by a 52 percent-45 percent spread, almost the same Catholic margin that had returned Obama to office in 2012.
Looking to 2020, Democrats’ task of reclaiming Catholic voters has become daunting due to recent pro-abortion extremism and the blatant anti-Catholicism of prominent Democratic politicians.
Last week New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, himself a Catholic, ordered the spire above the One World Trade Center illuminated in pink to commemorate passage of the most permissive abortion law in America, which allows the procedure to be performed all the way up to birth. In response, Albany Bishop Edward Scharfenberger wrote to Cuomo that “your advocacy of extreme abortion legislation is completely contrary to the teachings of our pope and our Church.†Politically speaking, Cuomo’s position is also contrary to overwhelming public opinion, as only 13 percent of Americans, per Gallup, support legal third-trimester abortion, including only 18 percent of Democratic voters.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/01/31/the_party_of_death_139331.html
