Incumbent US President Joe Biden, a Catholic, is battling a high unfavorability rating among his fellow Catholics, according to survey data released by the Pew Research Center.
According to the data, neither Biden nor his Republican rival, former president Donald Trump, are viewed favourably by a majority of Catholics surveyed, but Biden is the more unpopular of the two.
The findings were part of a presentation on ‘Religion and Politics Ahead of the US Elections’ by Pew’s associate director of research, Greg Smith, at the 2024 annual conference of the Religion News Association, which concluded over the weekend.
Included in the data provided by Smith, Pew’s late February survey of 12,000 US adults found that only 35% of Catholics hold a favourable view of Biden while 64% have an unfavourable view of the incumbent president.
In contrast, this year’s presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump, is viewed favourably by 42% of Catholics, while 57% hold an unfavourable view of the former president.
Trump’s edge over Biden among Catholics is fuelled by white Catholics, a majority of whom (54%) hold a favourable view of the former president. Trump is considerably less popular, however, with Hispanic Catholics, among whom only 32% view him favourably.
As Pew reported earlier this month, the country’s population of 52 million Catholics constitute 1 in 5 adults in the US Among American Catholics, 57% are white, while 33% are Hispanic, Pew reported.