ABSTRACT
Historically, Catholics have been at the very heart of the Democratic electoral coalition both in size and dependability. The upward economic and educational surge of white Catholics has undermined a critical anchor point for traditional Democratic partisanship, while the socioeconomic lag for non-white Catholics provides class underpinnings for the kind of Democratic Party support that has substantially declined in the electorate since the New Deal. But Catholic voting behavior, once so reliably Democratic, has undergone significant change, so that by 1988 Catholics were an important swing vote with Democratic leanings. Understanding the shift of Catholics from staunch Democratic loyalists to Democratic swing voters necessarily begins with an awareness of their upward economic and educational surge since 1960. The Catholic vote began to swing away from the Democrats in 1972, the first presidential election since 1932 in which a majority of Catholics did not vote Democratic; only 48% cast ballots for McGovern.
