Noted by several others, the results in Iowa show that Huckabee does not do very well with Catholic voters. Crosstabs from this old Rasmussen Florida poll from last month suggest that there may be something to this. In a poll where Huckabee registered 27% support, 17% of Catholics backed him, while receiving a whopping 46% from evangelicals. Meanwhile, Giuliani received the second-largest share of Catholic support (26%), while Romney was backed by the same percentage of Catholics and non-evangelical Protestants (29%). This has been the pattern in other states as well.
Rod, who endorsed Huckabee yesterday, said something in an earlier post that came to mind as I was thinking about this question:
For me, the Huck-as-change-agent theme comes down to this: an America led by a President Huckabee, and a conservative movement whose leader he is, might be an America and a conservatism where more people will read Wendell Berry — and for that matter, Catholic social thought.
If this pattern of limited Catholic support for Huckabee keeps up, barring the unlikely elevation of Michael Gerson in a future Huckabee Administration (there’s a scary thought), there may not be many who are supporting Huckabee who will be promoting Catholic social thought in any form. More to the point, if this pattern continues, Huckabee probably cannot win a general election.
On one level, it makes perfect sense that Catholic voters would not respond well to Huckabee. As a conservative Southern Baptist, he might appear to be no different from the Baptists who insist that Catholics are not Christians. Catholic voters might conclude that the people who are voting against Romney and for Huckabee on account of religion may very well also view their church as a “cult,” so they are withholding their support from Huckabee for that reason? To the extent that the media have explained his political success, for the most part correctly, in terms of evangelical support, and to the extent that the media have, less accurately, talked up the anti-Mormon factor in discussing his campaign, it would not be hard for voters who know relatively little about Huckabee to assume that he is simply the evangelical candidate with all of the possible anti-Catholic baggage that might entail. On the other hand, why Catholic voters should respond so much more strongly to Romney is a puzzle. He cannot claim any nominal or cultural connection to Catholicism, as Giuliani can, and his pro-life views are such a recent development that I find it hard to believe that he is winning over Catholic voters on this alone. Is there some boomerang pro-Romney sympathy vote that has emerged in reaction against anti-Mormonism? Perhaps Catholic voters are drawn to support the candidate who appears to be facing a “religious issue,” who currently hails from Massachusetts and who has invoked JFK’s speech on religion ad nauseam?
P.S. The latest SurveyUSA Florida poll, while not giving any figures according to religious affiliation, confirms the pattern from the earlier poll. Just look at the geographic distribution of Huckabee’s support: 40% in the northwest (the heavily evangelical Panhandle, including Pensacola) and 8% in the southeast (Miami-Dade and its surroundings). Huckabee receives decent, but hardly overwhelming, support in the other regions of Florida (17-18%). Conversely, Giuliani fares best in the southeast (25%) and does horribly in the northwest (2%). Romney runs strongest in northeast Florida (23%), receives 15% in SE Florida and receives only 8% in the northwest. Since Florida has something like 2.25 million Catholics living there, this could be a major hurdle for Huckabee (assuming that he does well enough in the rest of January that Florida still matters to his chances). Huckabee’s other, unrelated Florida problem? The elderly. Voters 65+ are the core of McCain’s strength down there, while Huckabee leads among the youngest cohort and runs competitively in every other group. Among the 65+ he is getting slaughtered by McCain 38-11, and he runs fourth overall among the eldest voters. Somebody doesn’t like all that talk about the greatest generation being the one yet to be born.
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January 12th, 2008 at 9:13 am
James Newland
I think it may be that he strikes Catholics as a yokel. His last name certainly doesn’t help, as shallow and meaningless a determinant as that may be. Any Southern preacher with a nickname (Huck) that sounds like Goofy’s moronic laugh is going to have problems with Catholics, I think.
I hasten to add that I don’t follow Presidential politics anymore except for this blog, so I may not be representative. I believe I’ve heard Huck’s actual voice once, in a soundbite on the news. But that is my own (admittedly unfair) knee-jerk reaction to the guy, which I offer for whatever it’s worth.
January 12th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Roach
Speaking as a Catholic supporter of Romney (and I live in Florida), Romney just strikes me as a decent man, religious, and also a religious minority. He also is at least saying the right things and I’ll think he’ll stick with the girl he brought to the dance. (Bush didn’t even say the right things when he was running). As a religious man and also a religious minority, i think he’ll respect traditional values but will avoid the nanny-state-ism that animates the busy-body “City on the Hill” Huckabee. Romney is basically the businessman’s conservative and clearly does not have his heart in the social issues, but he also does not have it in him to get in the face of majority-conservative Republican convictions. Huckabee does; like Bush he loves to show his superiority to conservatism. Romney’s the man in the Grey Flannel Suit with a big family, an apparnetly loving marriage, and a lot of raw brain power. Look we’re not electing a saint but a President; he’s about as good as it is this tmie around but for the lethargic Thompson.
January 12th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Daniel Larison
Thanks, Chris, that helps make sense of this for me. I see what you’re saying about Huckabee, and obviously I agree that he represents much of what is wrong with the current administration. Excluding Thompson, and even taking into account everything I’ve said about Huckabee, I’m still not sure that Romney is the best one available this time. On policy he differs with Bush essentially nowhere that I can see, while Huckabee has shown *some* independence on foreign policy, and I find Romney fundamentally untrustworthy. “Another Bush: More Competent, But Less Honest” is not a winning slogan in my view. I guess I can understand why some folks are backing Romney, but I am not persuaded that he is the least awful of the bunch.
January 13th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Roach
As I get older, I realize more and more that my grandfater was right when he said don’t trust politicians. I don’t know if he’ll disappoint. I expect we’ll lose this time around, but if it’s McCain or Huckabee, we’ll lose for the wrong reasons and I fear the diagnosis post-election will be bad, i.e., we need to shut down the social conservatives if Huckabee loses and, if McCain loses, that we need to further embrace his brand of big government conservatism and that he was hamstrung by social conservatives. If Romney loses, they’ll say he was a bit of a phony and it will be sui generis.
I see some daylight with Bush on immigration with Romney; at least he’s listening to the base here. I also think just by his nature he’ll cut spending and get the fed’s finances in order. Finally, I think he just comes across as a well-ordered guy who does not want to save us from the social conservatives, nor does he want to atone for our legacy of racism, like Bush did by “getting it right” with Hispanics.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he won, he’d disappoint me. But I’m sure that’s true of everyone running. It’s national, electoral politics, and I realize I’m getting further out of the mainstream.