OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A recent report from Pew Research has shown that Catholics in the United States have shifted their support towards former President Donald Trump and away from President Joe Biden.
In a head-to-head matchup between the two candidates, 55% of Catholics now support or lean towards supporting former President Donald Trump, while only 45% support Biden. This represents a significant shift in support for Trump since 2020, when he held a very narrow lead of 50% to 49%.
Biden currently has a narrow lead among Hispanic Catholics, with 49% supporting him and 47% supporting Trump. However, this still represents a major shift rightward for this demographic, as a similar poll in 2020 found that 67% of Hispanic Catholics preferred Biden to Trump.
Protestants, on the other hand, expressed overwhelming support for Trump, with approximately 60% backing him, and only about 38% leaning towards Biden, Fox News reported.
Atheists, agnostics, and the religiously unaffiliated broke in favor of Biden by a significant margin, with around 69% saying they would back the Democratic incumbent, while only 28% voiced support for Trump.
Despite his efforts to assert himself as a devout Catholic, Biden’s support of policies that go against the teachings of the Catholic Church, such as pro-choice deregulation and affirmation of gender ideology, has been met with pushback from Catholic leaders.
Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C., previously called Biden a “Caféteria Catholic,” saying he “picks and chooses dimensions of the faith to highlight while ignoring or even contradicting other parts.”
Things have gone from bad to worse for Biden lately.
In an exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll, Trump defeated Biden 40% to 38%, drawing a near-tie in a volatile electorate as the candidates get underway.
“Nearly eight months out, the election is not set yet. One in four people surveyed said they might change their minds before November. That unsettled sentiment was bipartisan, including 14% of Biden voters and 15% of Trump voters,” USA Today reported.
The outlet added: “Most of those now backing a third-party candidate said they were open to changing their minds, among them 75% of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. supporters and 94% of Jill Stein supporters. That signals the potential erosion independent candidates often see as Election Day nears. It also provides a big opportunity for each major-party candidate to make his case to voters who are now reluctant to support him and to convince those voters that it would be dangerous or unwise to back the other guy.”
Concerns about immigration (24%) and challenges to democracy (23%) trailed closely behind voters’ rankings of inflation and the economy, which accounted for 29% of their vote.
Abortion was the only other topic to reach double digits, coming in at 10%, the poll found.
Another new survey shows Biden falling further behind Trump on the issues voters care most about this election year.
According to the ABC/Ipsos poll conducted between March 8 and 9, 36 percent of respondents said that they trusted Trump compared to 33 percent who said they trusted Biden, while 30 percent said neither candidate had their trust.
Trump received higher ratings than Biden on all issues except abortion and climate change when respondents were asked about their opinions on the job performance of both presidents.
Trump garnered a 49 percent favorable rating on the economy, contrasting with Biden’s 37 percent.
Regarding inflation, 45 percent approved of Trump, compared to 31 percent for Biden. Regarding crime, Trump was viewed more favorably at 41 percent compared to Biden’s 35 percent.
Similarly, on immigration, Trump received a 45 percent favorable rating, while Biden trailed with 29 percent.
Other pollsters have noted that the more Biden’s administration persecutes Trump, the stronger his polling has become.
In fact, the ongoing prosecution of Trump is turning him into the ‘Nelson Mandela of America’ — a wrongly persecuted martyr of monumental proportions that could propel him back into the White House, according to one pollster.
“Nearly 7 in 10 voters, or 69%, believe that politics ‘has played’ a role in the four indictments against Trump, according to a new survey shared with Secrets,” the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard wrote last week.
He added: “Voters are angered at what they see as Democratic strong-arm tactics to take out America’s most popular politician with legal and political tactics and believe that President Joe Biden and his Justice Department are behind it.”
Additionally, 58 percent of respondents said they believe that Biden himself has had a role in ensuring Trump was indicted, including a third of Democrats, 54 percent of black voters, and 58 percent of Hispanic respondents. Also, more than half — 56 percent — say they want the DOJ to “stop targeting Donald Trump and interfering with the upcoming presidential election and Biden should let the voters decide who the next president should be,” the survey said.
“Biden is trying to make Donald Trump the Nelson Mandela of America,” said Trump pollster John McLaughlin told Bedard.
