On the menu: Trust fall; Mule mail; Greene at the gills; Beshear not bashful; The _____ Nate Moore
America’s obsession — or at least the American media’s obsession — with the election process that gave the world Pope Leo XIV has been intense. It’s been great #content. I mean, Cardinal Pizzaballa? How could they resist?
And the surprise result of the first-ever American pope delivered a shocking conclusion that not even Hollywood could match.
For politics watchers, it was especially appealing since a papal conclave is a perfect example of a high-stakes election inside a closed system. The Roman Catholic Church chooses its leader the way American political parties used to choose their presidential nominees at conventions. The electorate is tiny, supercharged by its members’ own considerations, deeply invested in the outcome and engaged in intense bargaining. Things get weird and outcomes become very hard to predict. Sometimes you get Abe Lincoln, sometimes you get Franklin Pierce, but there’s no pollster to tell you what to expect.
It’s all understandably fascinating to Americans who swell and bob on an ocean of odds, projections, forecasts and simulations about everything from college sports to presidential elections.
And certainly for American Catholics themselves, it’s been a moment to reflect on the direction of their church and their place in it. Despite lots of energy on the conservative wing of the American branch of the church from folks like Vice President Vance, the liberal-leaning Pope Francis seems to be popular with U.S. Catholics, with three-quarters of respondents in a recent poll saying they thought he led the church in the right direction.
Even if that number is inflated by warm feelings about the late pope so soon after his death, it certainly doesn’t suggest any widespread backlash to a more progressive pope. It would be reasonable to guess that the most ardent and engaged members of the faith in America skew more traditional and orthodox politically and theologically, but we don’t get a picture of a radically right-wing rank and file. The magisterium seems intact, even among the often quarrelsome American branch. Whether Chicago’s own Leo further unites or more deeply divides his coreligionist countrymen remains to be seen, but certainly it will be a time of intense consideration of and by American Catholics.
But that is mostly for them to decide. But there will, of course, be implications for the nation’s broader political and civic life. A very consistent 20 percent of all American adults consider themselves members of the church — more than 50 million people — making it second only to evangelical Protestantism (23 percent) among U.S. religious sects. The number of Catholics is roughly double the number of the mainline Protestants who once dominated America’s public life.
That’s a lot of Catholics, and though the share of the population is down since its peak of about 25 percent 60 years ago, the share has been remarkably stable since about 2010, even as other Christian denominations saw their numbers decline in favor of the “nones,” who express no religious affiliation whatsoever. But unlike 60 years ago, there may not be very much salience left to Catholicism as a unit of political demography.
In previous generations, American Catholics weren’t quite monolithic, but Catholicism did represent a commonality among immigrant groups. Starting with Irish and German immigrants in the middle of the 19th century, many of the new arrivals brought Catholicism with them to a decidedly Protestant new home. That trend continued with the Ellis Island immigrants at the turn of the 20th century, many of whom poured in from Southern and Eastern Europe.
Indeed, the divide between Democrats and Republicans in the North during and after the Civil War fell along the lines of newcomers and natives, which very often lined up with Catholics and Protestants. The Know Nothings of the 1850s and the Northern Ku Klux Klan that surged in the 1910s and 1920s were very much about organizing political force to smother a growing Catholic presence. Even Prohibition was fueled by anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic bias. Democrats, some Republicans said, were the party of “rum, Romanism” and, with a nod to the former Confederates who dominated the party in the South, “rebellion.”
For the next two generations, starting with Al Smith in 1928, Catholic voters tended to be Democrats, and Democrats catered to the Catholic constituency. That wasn’t because of church teaching so much as it was that Democrats were the party of the working classes, and the working classes included lots of immigrants, their children and grandchildren. Just as when Andrew Jackson revolutionized the party in the 1820s at the head of a huge demographic shift driven by lots of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, religious partisanship was a function of migration more than any doctrine.
As the descendants of those immigrant waves moved up the socioeconomic ladder and out of traditional ethnic enclaves, though, the correlation between Catholicism and Democratic support got watery.
Exit polls show us that in 2024, President Trump won Catholic voters 59 percent to 39 percent for former Vice President Kamala Harris, a stunning reversal from former President Biden’s 5 point advantage over Trump in 2020 — which was a reversal of Trump’s 6 point advantage over Hillary Clinton with Catholics in 2016. When we look closer, though, we see that the winner of the national popular vote in every election this century has also won the Catholic vote. That’s very different from the middle of the 20th century, when three-quarters or more of Catholics voted Democratic, even in losing elections for the blue team.
That 25-point swing from 2020 to 2024 is more pronounced than everything else we’ve seen this century of stable Catholic support roughly in line with the overall population. Could Biden’s own Catholicism be a part of the story? Certainly. But is there something else bigger going on with Catholic voters?
Look at these data from the Pew Research Center on America’s Catholics. What you see is that despite maintaining a consistent share of the population, within the Catholic population, huge regional and demographic changes are taking place. There are two main camps of Catholics these days: older, whiter Catholics in the Northeast and Midwest and younger, more Hispanic and Asian Catholics in the South and West.
The center of gravity for America’s Catholic population has been moving south and west at a high rate of speed. From New York and Boston to Detroit and Chicago to, now, Los Angeles and Houston. The assumption of many has been that the younger, less white direction of the church would manifest itself in growing liberalism, which is pretty much what Democrats in the 2000s and 2010s thought about the country as a whole.
The 59 percent of Catholics voting for Trump was just 4 points shy of the 63 percent of Protestants who backed the Republican nominee. It could certainly be a one-off driven by the same frustrations that generally pushed younger and nonwhite voters, especially men, away from Democrats in 2024. We may go back to normal in 2028 and see Catholic voters go back to being roughly in accord with the population as a whole.
But it may also be that we are seeing the beginning of a trend where working-class children and grandchildren of immigrants line up with the same church and the same political party. Catholics face lots of competition from evangelical Protestants for the membership of Hispanic Americans, but that would hardly point in the direction of a Democratic renaissance with those voters.
If the parties really are changing lanes and Republicans continue to move downscale while Democrats migrate up and out into affluent suburbs, perhaps one day we’ll see a return of a powerful Catholic voting bloc, only this time for the red team.
President Rubio, before President Ocasio-Cortez, perhaps? We’re a long way off, but the evidence of the start of the shift is there.
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NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Trump Job Performance
Average Approval: 42.8%
Average Disapproval: 54.2%
Net Score: -11.4 points
Change from last week: +1.4 points
Change from last month: -4.2 points
[Average includes: Ipsos/Reuters: 42% approve – 53% disapprove; NYT/Siena: 42% approve – 54% disapprove; NPR/PBS/Marist: 42% approve – 53% disapprove; NewsNation: 44% approve – 56% disapprove; Fox News: 44% approve – 55% disapprove]
Trust craters among Americans with lower levels of education, income
% who say that most people can be trusted
By education level
- High school or less: 24%
- Bachelor’s: 44%
- Postgrad: 52%
By income group
- Household income <$50k: 25%
- $50k–$100k: 35%
- $100k+: 46%
[Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults, 2024]
ON THE SIDE: HOOFING IT
The Atlantic: “Just after 8 o’clock one spring morning, 2,000 feet below the rim of the Grand Canyon, Nate Chamberlain, wearing chaps and cowboy boots, emerged from the post office in Supai, Arizona, with the last of the morning mail. … He climbed into the saddle on the lead mule, gave a kick of his spurs, and set off down the dirt road leading out of the village. It was the beginning of what may be the country’s most unusual USPS route—the very last to deliver mail by mule. … Supai, the only village on the reservation of the Havasupai Tribe, is one of the most remote communities in the country. … The mule train, which makes the 16-mile, six-hour loop up and down the canyon five days a week, is perhaps the most extreme manifestation of the USPS mandate to ‘render postal services to all communities.’ Mail delivery in Supai involves a feat of logistics, horsemanship, and carefully placed hooves. … Even now in Supai, as Lynanne Palmer put it, ‘Life runs around the post office.’”
PRIME CUTS
Greene at the gills: Republicans fret over Georgia Senate race: The Hill: “Republican senators are waving off firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from jumping into next year’s Georgia Senate race, voicing concerns that some of the ‘crazy’ things she’s said might come back to hurt her in a general election race against vulnerable Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. … Greene says she is looking seriously at either running for governor or for Senate in 2026. … GOP senators acknowledge she would have a good shot at winning the nomination given her national prominence and solid standing with many supporters of President Trump. … Those chances got a boost this week when Gov. Brian Kemp (R), Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-S.D.) top recruit for the race, said he won’t challenge Ossoff. … If [Greene] ran for the Senate in 2026, Greene would have to be competitive in swing counties outside of Atlanta, such as Cobb, Gwinnett and Henry.”
Self-proclaimed ‘MAGA warrior’ launches challenge to Ossoff: Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter became the first prominent Republican to jump into the race against U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, launching his campaign Thursday with a TV ad that casts him as a pro-Donald Trump ‘MAGA warrior.’ … Carter telegraphed his strategy with an opening ad that attacked Ossoff’s immigration stance and blasted the Democrat’s vote against a GOP-led measure to bar transgender girls from competing in women’s sports. … Carter has been prepping for a potential Senate bid for years. In 2021, he assembled a campaign team to challenge U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock but ultimately passed. … A former mayor of the Savannah suburb of Pooler, Carter built a reputation as a constituent-focused representative with a knack for retail politics who has honed ties to both the mainstream and MAGA wings of his party.”
Andy Beshear’s 2028 shadow campaign is well underway: Politico: “Andy Beshear isn’t just saying he ‘would consider’ running for president. He’s actively laying the tracks for a potential 2028 campaign. He’s meeting privately with donors, recording a podcast and regularly popping up at national events. A former Kamala Harris communications staffer is consulting for him. … The selling point for Beshear, the popular, two-term governor of Kentucky, is his proven ability to win in Trump country while still running as an unapologetic Democrat. … It worked for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, whom Beshear occasionally draws comparisons to, but that was several political lifetimes ago. Recent rural-state Democratic governors to try it, Montana’s Steve Bullock and Colorado’s John Hickenlooper, never cracked the single-digit polling basement of the 2020 Democratic primary.”
Gallego, too, starts swing-state tour as 2028 speculation heats up: Politico: “Ruben Gallego is setting off to a key battleground state to speak with voters this week, a sign the Arizona senator may have higher ambitions as some Democrats float him as a potential 2028 presidential candidate. … Gallego will headline a May 10 town hall in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a pivotal bellwether that President Donald Trump flipped in 2024. … Gallego is a rising star in the Democratic Party who won a state in 2024 that Trump carried in part by overperforming among Latino voters compared to former Vice President Kamala Harris. … Gallego grew up poor with a single mother, eventually making it to Harvard, where he worked part-time as a janitor, and enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in the Iraq War.”
At long last, GOP candidate concedes in North Carolina judicial race: AP: “The Republican challenger for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat conceded last November’s election on Wednesday to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs, two days after a federal judge ruled that potentially thousands of disputed ballots challenged by Jefferson Griffin must remain in the final tally. … Griffin’s decision sets the stage for Riggs to be officially elected to an eight-year term as an associate justice in the nation’s ninth-largest state. … ‘North Carolina can finally turn the page on the 2024 election,’ Democratic Gov. Josh Stein wrote on the social platform X. … While The Associated Press declared over 4,800 winners in the 2024 general election, the North Carolina Supreme Court election was the last race nationally that was undecided.”
SHORT ORDER
As GOP threatens release of Hur interview, Biden adds PR staffers—Politico
Former Rep. Tim Ryan floats 2026 Ohio gubernatorial bid—Cleveland
DeWine scrambles to deny Ramaswamy endorsement from Ohio GOP—NBC News
AOC passes on bid to replace Connolly on Oversight Committee—The Hill
TABLE TALK
Quarter zips for the factory floor
“For the business majors here today, I challenge you not merely to use your talents for financial speculation, but to apply your great skills that you’ve learned and had to forging the steel and pouring the concrete of new American factories, plants, shipyards, and even cities.”—President Donald Trump urges new college grads to take up manual labor while speaking at the University of Alabama commencement last week.
MAILBAG
“Is there any way President Trump can get his approval ratings up?”—Kurt Perleberg, Williamstown, Ky.
Mr. Perleberg,
Many ways! It might not be easy to take back all of the ground he’s lost since his inauguration, but even that is possible.
Simply by declaring victory in the “liberation day” tariff gambit and saying that he had solved the problem, Trump could drive his numbers perhaps even higher than they were as he took office. So profound would be the relief that, like the market rallies that have followed Trump’s moves away from import taxes, the rally would surpass the previous high.
Indeed, I expect to see gains for Trump and Republicans generally as incremental trade deals are announced.
The same goes for immigration policy. If the president were to announce today that he was ordering his officials to speedily comply with the letter and spirit of Supreme Court rulings on deportations without due process, his numbers would no doubt get an obvious boost.
But if the question is whether Trump can improve his numbers without changing his policies, the answer is much murkier. As we saw all throughout the Biden administration, members of the president’s party say that the “messaging” needs to improve. But that suggests that if the people paying higher prices and struggling to buy homes really understood the larger objectives of the administration, they would cease to object.
I’m not saying that Trump wouldn’t be helped by more coherent and consistent rhetoric on trade, immigration, and everything else, but only that when voters have a problem with the policies, spin can only take one so far.
One thing that would probably help Trump in that way, though, would probably be to simply be talking and doing less. Ubiquity can be helpful in winning elections, and Trump’s gift for dominating news cycle after news cycle certainly helped him keep his base activated and engaged throughout the long 2024 cycle. But once in office, burnout sets in quickly. That was a problem for Trump throughout his first term and seems to be even more the case this time around.
Letting folks take a breath before the next onslaught might help voters to cool off.
All best,
c
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The _____ Nate Moore
For the three years or so that I have had the privilege of working with my American Enterprise Institute (AEI) colleague Nate Moore, I have included an adjective in my weekly political note to describe him.
In the appeal to you, gentle readers, to email us with your thoughts, questions, reproofs, corrections, jokes, recipes, etc. I have written at least 150 times: “My colleague, the _____ Nate Moore, and I will look for your emails and then share the most interesting ones and my responses here.”
I fill that blank every week with an adjective to describe Nate, who has been your advocate and enthusiast since his first day on the job. I include it because it’s a bit of a challenge for me and a bit of an Easter egg for readers to find. But it is also to remind people that there is a real, flesh-and-blood human reading all of your emails. Maybe knowing that Nate is great helped people to be more temperate in their angry emails and concise in their musings out of deference to Mr. Moore.
Over these years, the long list has included several repeats, but a broad smattering of descriptors, including:
Intrepid, fearless, dauntless, stouthearted, statesmanlike, sedulous, canny, doughty, prolific, heedful, thankful, perspicacious, robust, hale and hearty, writerly, estimable, bracket-busting, tanned, rested, and ready, stalwart, gimlet-eyed, nuanced, natty, upstanding, learned, resourceful, studious, talented, autumnally inclined, discerning, multi-tasking, exquisitely sweatered, inquisitive, Curriered and Ived, Yuletastic, Yule-enthused, yuletided, appropriately festive, loaded up and truckin’, peripatetic, correspondence-deprived, resolute, cable-knitted, early and often, diligent, knowledgeable, scrupulous, estimable, vernal, crosstab-surfing, incisive, Python-taming, prudent, energetic, terrific, careful, cautious, and earnest, agile, out-of-doors, sorely missed, peak season, ever-ready, meticulous, knowledgeable, tenacious, ruggedly individualistic, vacated, tweedy, superb, data-driven, hardy, tried and tested, commendable, un-gerrymandered, psephological and indefatigable.
Nate is or has been all of those things, both the silly and the profound. But now he is something else: My former colleague. After a long and impressive run at AEI, Nate is off to law school where he will find more hard work and lots of opportunities to make his name in this big beautiful world. Part of me hopes that it won’t be nearly as much fun as we have had together, but I am even more excited to see what a young man of such prodigious talents and good temperament will do for himself and for the country.
And certainly I am happy that even though we’ve offered our last descriptor for Nate, a new one will remain ever after: Friend.
FOR DESSERT
Hi, roomies: WLS: “A Chicago man says he did the unthinkable when he discovered alleged squatters in his property: He decided to move in with them. Marco Velazquez is the owner of a South Side property, which is on the market to be sold. He says his realtor came by with a potential buyer, but there were already people inside. … Velazquez says a woman named Shermaine and her boyfriend, Codarro, moved in, claiming they recently purchased the property. … He says police told them that under Illinois’ current law, they could not remove anyone. ‘I said, ‘I’m not going to leave.’ Called a couple friends, stayed overnight and I knew they were not going to like that,’ Velazquez said. … Velazquez says he, his wife and their friends spent the night with the alleged squatters. ‘We stayed in the living room, watching the door. They stayed in one of the bedrooms,’ Velazquez said. ‘We stayed a whole night with them.’”
Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for The Hill and NewsNation, the host of The Hill Sunday on NewsNation and The CW, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of books on politics and the media. Nate Moore contributed to this report.
