Undecided Catholic voters a dependable but swing voting bloc, report finds

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Undecided Catholic voters are a swing voting bloc, but reliably show up to the polls, a new report found.

The report, conducted by Untold Research on behalf of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby, found “Catholics are swing voters in the truest sense of the term.” It found that just 4% of respondents who described themselves as Catholics and as undecided, uncommitted voters in this election cycle did not vote at all in the past three presidential elections.

Laurie Carafone, Network’s executive director, told OSV News in an interview the group commissioned the report because “many voters, including Catholic voters, are undecided even close to the election, and we wanted just to have a better insight into what issues and factors motivate undecided Catholic voters.”

The report, released Oct. 28, filtered focus-group participants for those who identified as Catholics and said they were undecided in the upcoming elections. Most of the respondents resided in Michigan, they said, a battleground state with a key Senate race ranked as a toss-up by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Catholics are a reliable voting bloc in terms of casting a ballot, the Network report found, but “what they offer in terms of dependability to show up at the polls, they lack in predictability for whom they will pull the lever.”

Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they have voted for both former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump, “and majorities of uncommitted, undecided Catholics, as a whole, supported both presidents, despite the candidates’ vastly different policy priorities and approaches to governing,” the report said.

Data showing these voters “crossing party lines to vote over the past two decades,” shows they are “open to solutions from both parties,” Carafone said.

The Network report came after a recent Pew Research Center survey found that among all Catholics, 42% said that if the election were held today, they would vote for the Democrat in their House district, 39% said the Republican, while another 19% said they were unsure or would select another party’s candidate. But it also found white Catholics and Hispanic Catholics divide sharply over which party’s candidates they plan to support in the midterms.

Among white Catholics, the Pew survey found, 50% said they would support the Republican candidate, and 32% said the Democrat, with another 18% unsure. Among Hispanic Catholics, 59% said they would support the Democrat, 19% said the Republican candidate, and 21% said they were unsure.

Polls of the general public have consistently found that voters in the 2026 midterm elections report being most motivated by economic or cost-of-living issues. The Network report found undecided Catholic voters are also concerned about these issues, with 80% describing economic issues as having an influence in their decision-making, followed by healthcare at 78% and issues affecting older adults at 77%.

Carafone said the report found “these undecided Catholic voters that were surveyed care deeply about the issues that are at the heart of Catholic social teaching: feeding our families, caring for our loved ones, decent jobs with fair wages, just to name a few.”

“These are issues that are affecting voters and their communities across the country in a very real way,” she said.

Undecided and uncommitted Catholic voters who attend Mass more frequently, she added, “do stand out from the others in this survey group.”

The report found that group “decides whom to vote for later, and they do report stronger religious influence on their views and on the issues that are weighing most, especially if it involves family and children’s issues, and they do lean more Republican and name immigration and race as important issues for them,” she said.

The midterm elections are scheduled for Nov. 3. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement Oct. 14 reminding the faithful that “for citizens in a representative democracy such as our own, participation in public life — including voting — is both a right and a responsibility.”

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