(CP) The Latino Christian vote shifted strongly in support of President-elect Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, according to exit polls.
Responses collected from 22,914 voters in exit polls show major changes among certain demographics that likely played a role in Trump securing the White House.
While nearly every demographic group moved in favor of Trump compared to the 2020 election, his gains were most pronounced among Catholics. According to 2020 exit polling data, President Joe Biden received 52% of the Catholic vote while Trump received 47%.
Trump's support among Catholics increased to 58% in 2024, while Vice President Kamala Harris received 40%. Among white Catholics, Trump's share of support increased from 56% in 2020 to 61% in 2024. Harris received a smaller share among this group of voters (35%) than Biden did in 2020 (44%).
Trump received a majority of the Latino Catholic vote (53%) in 2024, while he captured just 28% in 2020. Four years ago, the overwhelming majority of Latino Catholics (71%) backed Biden. This year, Harris secured 46% from this group of voters.
In a statement posted on X Wednesday, Brian Burch of the advocacy group CatholicVote said "Catholic voters played a decisive role in the historic victory of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance."
"These numbers are shocking, and could prove to be the largest margin among Catholics in a presidential race in decades. Catholics proved again to be a critical voting bloc that cannot be ignored," he stated.
Burch believes the Trump campaign secured the Catholic vote because the president-elect promised "to improve the lives of those most impacted by inflation, and by promising to bring about a humane and orderly solution to the chaos at the border."
"Further, Trump and Harris differed sharply over the role of religion in America, with Harris sealing her fate by telling Christians they didn't belong at her rallies, before declaring there would be no accommodations for people of faith on abortion," he added.
"Harris exposed the fact that the Democratic Party has a big Catholic problem, with the Republican realignment now incorporating Hispanics, union members, and working class voters that had reliably voted for Democrats in the past."
Trump's support among Latino Protestants also surged from 48% in 2020 to 64% in 2024. The 34% of the vote Harris received from Latino Protestants in 2024 amounted to a steep decline from the 51% support captured by Biden in 2020.
A much smaller shift occurred among black Protestants. Eighty-five percent of black Protestants backed Harris in 2024, compared to 87% who supported Biden in 2020. Trump's vote share among this group for both elections was 13%.
Trump saw his overall vote share among the nonwhite population increase significantly in 2024. While the former president captured just 32% of the Latino vote in 2020, that number rose to 46% in 2024. Only a narrow majority of Latino voters (52%) supported Harris in 2024, a drop from the 65% who backed Biden in 2020.
While 59% of Latino men supported Biden in 2020, Trump secured a majority (55%) of this demographic's votes in 2024. The swing to Trump was less pronounced among Latina women as a majority of them (60%) backed Harris, although Trump saw his support among this group rise from 30% in 2020 to 38% in 2024.
Among Asians, Trump's vote share rose from 34% in 2020 to 39% in 2024 as the 54% support Harris received from this demographic marked a drop from the 61% captured by Biden four years earlier.
Black women were the only nonwhite group of voters to give Harris a higher share of the vote (91%) than Biden (90%). Harris also received a slightly higher percentage of the vote from white women (45%) than Biden did (44%).
Trump improved substantially among white Evangelical born-again Christians in 2024. While he received 76% of the vote among the demographic four years ago, that figure rose to 82% this year. Only 17% voted for Harris in 2024, a significant drop from the 24% who backed Biden in 2020.
