Latino Catholics overwhelmingly favor Obama

[IDemo]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Catholic and religiously unaffiliated Latinos overwhelmingly support reelecting President Obama, while only about half of evangelical Latinos do, according to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center released Thursday.

Most Latino registered voters support Obama regardless of how often they attend church, but those who reported attending frequently were less likely to support his reelection. Those who never attend religious services favored the president the most, the study found.

The survey, which also found growing support for gay marriage among Latinos, was largely consistent with national polls showing that the fast-growing group — now 24 million eligible voters — backs Obama over Mitt Romney by a 3-1 margin.

Latino Catholics who are registered to vote poll similarly to the overall Latino population, with 73% saying they plan to vote for Obama and 19% saying they will vote for Romney. National polls generally show Romney garnering just over 20% of the Latino vote. By contrast, Catholic whites are almost evenly split, with 47% favoring Obama and 46% backing Romney.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-latino-catholics-obama-20121017,0,5163647.story

[onehandle]

1. The collective of all American Catholics prefer Obama by 54%. nt

[powergirl]

2. That's right

Catholics trend liberal - poverty issues. And they (I being one of them) really don't care what the Bishop's Association says because they have no credibility because of the sex abuse scandals.

[happyslug]

7. Actually the BIshop Conference is split, the Majority support economic rights more

But you have a solid and very loud group of bishops (and hangers-on) who view the Abortion issue as their only issue. If a Bishop DARES mention that Economics should be given a higher standing, he is shouting down as being anti-Catholic for NOT being Anti-Abortion enough.

When the Bishops can escape the Abortion issues, the bishops tend to progressive economic issues, just the Nuns.

[crim son]

3. My ex MIL, a crazily devout German Catholic,

has voted R as long as I've known her. Not this time. Romney's a - gasp! - Mormon, and no way in Hell is she going to vote for a Mormon. Apparently his alien religion trumps even Obama's pro-woman, pro-choice-ish position. Hey, whatever works.

[happyslug]

4. I love the lack of Context in this article, this may be CLASS not Religious related.

Latinos that do NOT go to Church Support Obama more then Latinos that go to Church, but then point out Catholic Latinos support Obama at the same level as Latinos as a whole. i.e no real difference between these two groups. Lets be honest given this type of poll, 19% vote for Romney for Catholic Latinos is within any error rate of the 20% of all Latinos who will vote for Romney.

The article then points out "evangelical Latinos" give almost the same support for Romney and Obama. Now, Evangelicals have made inroads with Latinos over the last 30-50 years, but the overwhelming number of Latinos are still Catholic. Evangelicals are larger among those groups from Central America (and to a lesser extent Mexico) that supported American Policy as to Central America since WWII (i.e. supported the dictatorship of the various Central American Republics). The Evangelicals tend to be among the supported of those Countries 1% and are slowly climbing to be 10% of the population in those countries (and tied in with the top 1% of those countries, i.e these are the hanger-ons of the 1%).

I bring this up for why the paper looked at the RELIGIOUS Nature of the Latino voters, the difference may be more a product of their ECONOMIC background. i.e. if a Latino is a member of the 99% they tend to be Catholic or a lapsed Catholic, on the other hand if they are in the 1% or hanger-ons of that 1% (Which tends to be about 10% of the population) you tend to support Romney (and be an Evangelical like Latinos in Central America).

[XtopherXtopher]

5. that was EXACTLY my reaction. n/t

[Rozlee]

6. That was the case in our family.

We backed Democrats because my parents had been migrants workers and Democrats and liberals the ones who fought to make life better for them with unions and laws to protect them while Republicans took the side of Big Agra and others who tried to keep down workers' progress. It was a bread and butter issue and we've looked suspiciously at Republicans since.