NEW YORK (Forbes) November 9, 2005 — Voters cast ballots Tuesday in bellwether gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey and on a slate of politically controversial initiatives in California. This is an "off-year" election--federal offices are not being contested--but the outcome may signal whether recent White House setbacks have influenced the electorate. Catholic voters are an important "swing" constituency and have been heavily courted by both parties.

Analysis of the 2004 presidential campaign suggests that energizing President George Bush's base of support and appealing to certain "swing voters," including Catholics, were decisive factors. In Ohio, Bush's victory was sealed in part by Catholic voters. Significantly, he increased his vote among Catholics there by 170,000 over his 2000 total--more than his margin of victory. Yet while Republicans successfully courted religious Catholics in 2004, repeating this success may have proved difficult in Tuesday's elections.

Catholics make up a vital, albeit highly fragmented, component of the electorate. There are 44 million adult Catholics in the United States. Therefore, the Catholic vote is approximately 25% of the electorate.

There is a significant distinction between "faithful" Catholics and mere "culturally identified" Catholics. The former tend to be conservative in their voting patterns, while the latter are often liberal. The most substantial concentrations of Catholics are in the Midwest, Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions. The most politically competitive states often have the largest Catholic populations.

Recent presidential elections indicate the degree to which Catholics are now swing voters. These results underline the fact that the Catholic vote is deeply split between the major parties. The diversity of the group is one of the challenges any candidate faces when making special appeals to Catholics. Nonetheless, religious beliefs are not the dominant influence on most Catholics' voting behavior. The Church hierarchy is usually reluctant to stipulate its voting preferences.

The decline of the traditional Catholic association with the Democrats is also due to economic trends and population shifts. Catholics are now more often educated, wealthy, suburban and employed in the higher professions than ever before. Nonetheless, the shift away from the Democratic Party has not led most Catholics to embrace the Republicans. Like the rest of the electorate, Catholics have become increasingly independent of the main parties. Among the minority of Catholics that have retained strong party affiliations, white Catholics have tended to support Republican candidates, while new immigrants have forged links with Democrats.

Bush has courted the support of religious Catholics. Yet polls suggest that Bush's conservative politics and opposition to stem cell research have hurt his standing among many moderate and liberal Catholics. Despite the splintering of the Catholic vote, many Catholics retain some of their old Democratic Party impulses, particularly strong support for Social Security and mildly redistributive economic policies. Furthermore, Bush already had the support of conservative Catholics when he became president.

Recent elections suggest the Republicans are gaining support from Catholic voters, but demographic trends portend an eventual reversal. White, Catholic churchgoers are more reliably Republican than ever. But except for Cuban-Americans, new Catholic immigrants are solidly Democratic. Affluent white Catholics are heavy voters, while Hispanic Catholics are a much faster-growing portion of the population but have notoriously low turnout rates. Therefore, both parties are attempting to appeal to new Hispanic immigrants, who may be the key to capturing a majority of the Catholic vote in future elections.

Catholics were traditionally an important Democratic constituency but have leaned increasingly toward the Republican Party since the 1980s. White Catholics are an important component of suburban Republican support, while new Hispanic immigrants tend to back the Democrats. Catholic voters embody the current political divide. Capturing the majority of the Catholic vote in national elections--and in many local polls--has become a prerequisite for victory.