A progressive organization has launched what it calls a “first of its kind” national campaign to turn out Catholic voters in competitive congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterms – with the aim of rallying support for Democratic candidates.
“Catholics Vote Common Good,” a Democratic-aligned group that supported former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, said the campaign will target nearly three dozen districts where Catholics make up at least 20% of the electorate, according to a June 10 National Catholic Reporter report. The initiative will reportedly include grassroots events, billboard campaigns, postcard outreach, voter outreach, faith-focused messaging, and coalition building.
CatholicVote Vice President of Advocacy Joshua Mercer pushed back on the campaign, pointing to the moral issues on which the Democratic Party has pitted itself against the Church and Catholic teachings. “Once again, a group of liberals are working overtime to deceive Catholics by sprinkling ‘common good’ language on the Democratic Party’s platform,” Mercer said. “But Catholics won't be fooled again.”
Mercer noted that research from Ryan Burge shows Democrats won 70% of the Catholic vote in the early 1970s, but by 2000, Catholics were evenly divided between the two major parties.
“The Democrats have openly embraced not just abortion, but also ‘transgender’ operations on children, and have repeatedly threatened to imprison Catholic nuns if they didn't pay for abortion pills,” Mercer said. “Catholics have rejected the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party has rejected the common good.”
The progressive initiative comes as Democrats seek to make inroads with a religious constituency President Donald Trump won in 2024. During a May 28 conference call hosted by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Catholics Vote Common Good, Denise Murphy McGraw, national co-chair of Catholics Vote Common Good, said Catholics “can play an important role in preserving democracy and advancing the common good” by being a “force for dignity and justice in public life,” according to the National Catholic Reporter.
On its website, Catholics Vote Common Good describes itself as a “progressive faith organization” focused on mobilizing Catholics concerned about “politiciam extremist, the dehumanization of immigrants, decreased access to healthcare, growing economic anxiety for working families, growing global violence and reckless wars, threats to democratic institutions, and attacks by [President] Donald Trump and his allies against our American Pope, Leo XIV.”
DNC Chairman Ken Martin, who is Catholic, also joined the call and criticized Trump administration policies on immigration and other issues, which he described as “at odds with the Catholic faith,” according to the National Catholic Reporter. Martin accused the administration of “dehumanizing immigrants” and “glorifying war and the weapons used to pursue it.” He also criticized Trump’s public attacks on Pope Leo.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Pope Leo over his outspokenness against the Iran war. Days before Pope Leo met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio May 7, Trump falsely accused the Pope of suggesting that Iran should be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. As Zeale News previously reported, Pope Leo responded by pointing to the Church’s longstanding opposition to all nuclear weapons.
>> Rubio meets with Pope Leo at Vatican to discuss Middle East, international situation <<
Christopher Carroll, an organizer with Catholics Vote Common Good, said many Catholics are “in the middle” politically and open to appeals from fellow Catholics that are based on Catholic social teaching, according to the report.
“We believe we can convince them to vote for common good candidates,” Carroll said.
In the 2024 presidential election, Trump carried Catholic voters by a solid margin, according to exit polls from multiple outlets. The Washington Post’s national exit poll found Trump carrying Catholics 56% to 41% over Harris, while AP VoteCast found Trump winning Catholics 52% to 45%.
In some cases, Trump’s inroads among Catholic voters were historic: According to a CNN exit poll, Trump also won Latino Catholics, a group that has leaned Democratic in past elections, by a seven-point margin over Harris.