As Catholics go to the polls for Midterm Elections, the cost of living and inflation (73%) are at the top of the list of the most important issues facing the country. Following this is unemployment (45%); poverty, hunger, and homelessness (43%); immigration (41%); and fuel/oil prices (39%).
Overall the Catholic electorate is evenly split between identifying as Democrats (34%), Republicans (32%), and independents (34%). However, political party affiliation patterns vary by race and ethnicity. Hispanic Catholics are 43% Democrat as are 54% of Black Catholics compared to 28% affiliation among non-Hispanic White Catholics.
Catholics are also relatively evenly divided by political ideology with 33% being liberal, 31% conservative, and 36% middle of the road.
These results are from a national survey conducted between May 15, 2026 and June 30, 2026. There were a total of 2,401 self-identified Catholic respondents ages 18 or older. CARA)partnered with Qualtrics to field this survey. Qualtrics utilized their opt-in sampling panels for the study. The survey was taken online and was available in English and Spanish. Self-identified Catholics were sampled randomly from these panels. Quotas and weighting for generation and ethnicity were used to ensure the sample is representative to the adult Catholic population relative to the most recent estimates in the General Social Survey (GSS). The religion of the respondents was verified with the first survey question. Respondents received incentives for their participation. Responses were screened and quality checked for those who did not complete the survey or who responded too quickly without considering questions. Because the survey did not use probability-based sampling a traditional margin of error cannot be calculated. When opt-in panels are used a credibility interval is used. For this survey this is ±2.0 percentage points for the total sample. The full results of the survey are available here.
