Catholic Voters Turned Democratic in Midterms
Exit polls show a 50-49 split between parties, reversing the strong Republican support seen in the 2024 presidential race.
By Aiko Petrov ·
Catholic voters backed Democratic candidates by a slim margin in the 2026 midterm elections.
Initial exit polls from NBC News and partner organizations found 50% of Catholic respondents chose Democrats while 49% selected Republicans. This result contrasts with the 2024 presidential election, where Catholic voters supported President Donald Trump by a wide margin. In that contest, Trump secured 55% of the Catholic vote while Vice President Kamala Harris received 43%.
Ryan Burge, a professor of practice at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the newsletter Graphs about Religion, described the early data as showing a definite reversal. He noted that the trend had previously moved toward Republicans for several cycles. Burge emphasized that Catholics are not a locked-in voting bloc and remain more malleable than evangelical voters.
Historical data confirms this pattern of shifting allegiance. Catholic majorities supported Al Gore in 2000, George W. Bush in 2004, Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Trump in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and Trump again in 2024. The 2026 results continue this history of fluctuating party preference among the demographic.
The shift occurred against a backdrop of a Democratic landslide. Projections as of Nov. 9 indicated Democrats would hold an 83-seat majority in the U.S. House, with 259 seats against 176 for Republicans. Democrats also gained Senate seats in traditionally Republican states including Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa. They swept competitive races in North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, and Maine. Races in Mississippi and Alaska remained too close to call on the day of the election.
Texas served as a prominent example of this electoral shift. Democratic state Rep. James Talarico defeated Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Senate race. Talarico won by 13 points, marking the first Democratic Senate victory in the state since 1994. Paxton had lost the Republican primary to incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, a race Trump supported. Burge stated that the Talarico victory could not have happened without subgroups, including Catholics, shifting left.
Michael Moreland, a professor of law and religion at Villanova University, said Catholic voters likely influenced House races in Ohio, Iowa, and Pennsylvania as well. He noted that the Catholic vote was not the sole determining factor in those locations but contributed to a larger trend of white voter disaffiliation from the Republican Party.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted before the election tracked Trump’s declining approval among Catholics. His rating fell from 47% at the start of his second term to 30% in October 2026. Analysts attributed this drop to immigration policies that Catholic leaders opposed and Trump’s public attacks on Pope Leo earlier in the year.
Moreland observed that concerns over the perceived cruelty in immigration enforcement were a significant factor in many parts of the Catholic community. These sentiments aligned with the broader disaffection seen in exit poll data. The members of the 120th U.S. Congress elected in these contests are scheduled to be sworn in on Jan. 3, 2027.
