NEWS ANALYSIS: As the Democrats plunge into the primary season, new EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll finds President Trump in a slightly stronger position among Catholics — but they are divided sharply according to their embrace of Church teachings.
By Matthew Bunson, EWTN News, 2/24/20
Matthew Bunson is executive editor and Washington bureau chief of EWTN News. He is a frequent contributor to the Register.
Even as the Democrat candidates for president fight for every vote in the Super Tuesday primaries, a new EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll — the second of four polls on Election 2020 — finds that while President Donald Trump is in a stronger position among Catholics than he was at the end of 2019, he is still trailing his potential Democrat rivals.
At the same time, Catholic voters are divided significantly in how they view the president and the Democrat candidates. Much as with the first EWTN RealClear Opinion Research Poll in December, the new survey confirms even more starkly that one of the most important predictors of a Catholic’s vote is the degree to which he or she accepts Church teachings. And that is just as important in how these voters look at pressing social issues and the most fundamental teachings of Catholicism.
The poll, taken Jan. 28-Feb. 4 of a sample of 1,521 self-identified Catholics, affirms once again — and even more convincingly — that any survey of Catholics must be careful in addressing the massive gulf among those Catholics who accept all of the Church’s teachings and those who accept only some, or those who reject key teachings, or say the Church has only a small influence on their lives. ….
Read more here https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/ewtn-news-realclear-opinion-research-poll-no.-2-finding-the-catholic-vote