Pro-life advocate says Trump win 'huge' for Catholic voters: 'Morality matters'

Catholic voters were the biggest winners in the 2024 election, the head of a pro-life group said.

“The victory is huge for Catholic voters. Trump won the Catholic vote handily,” Shawn Carney, founder of 40 Days For Life, told Fox News Digital.

“I know the Al Smith dinner gets a lot of attention because of this. It definitely wasn't a wise decision for me. [VP Harris] don't go there. But I think it's not enough to dress up in a dress or a tuxedo and go to a fundraiser. We Catholics still, frankly, feel like the Biden-Harris administration hated Catholics and they hated religion.

“We see what they tolerated, in some cases encouraged what happened to the Jews. We saw the DOJ targeting Catholics and targeting pro-lifers. And you just get the feeling that they didn't like or did not respect Catholics.”

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Shawn Carney, founder of the national pro-life organization 40 Days For Life, told Fox News Digital that the Republican victory in the presidential election was “huge.” (Fox News Digital)

According to a Fox News exit poll conducted on election night, Catholics across the country leaned nine percentage points in Trump's favor, with Trump winning Catholics by 10 points.

Catholics were evenly split between President Biden and Trump in 2020, with 50% favoring Trump and 49% favoring Biden.

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Even though the Catholic swing exceeded expectations nationally, the margin of Catholic voters favoring Trump was even greater in some of the most critical swing states.

In Pennsylvania, which has 19 electoral votes and was considered the Most important swing state for both candidatesCatholics represent a quarter of the electorate. According to a Fox exit poll, Catholic voters in Pennsylvania favored Trump by a 13-point margin, 56% to 43%.

Catholic voters in two of the next swing states – North Carolina (16 electoral votes) and Michigan (15 electoral votes) – voted for Trump by 17 and 20 percentage points, respectively.

Trump also won over Wisconsin Catholics by 16 percentage points, helping give the state's 10 electoral votes to the former president.

Pope Francis holds a censer as he celebrates a mass for the Virgin of Guadalupe in St. Peter's Basilica, December 12, 2018, in the Vatican. (Getty Images)

Carney said Harris “ran on abortion,” highlighting the social issue as the candidate's downfall.

“Kamala spoke out in favor of abortion and she celebrated abortion,” he said. “His campaign was depressing to say the least.

“Latinos are against abortion. Catholics are against abortion. And even liberal Catholics who are going to vote Democratic and who perhaps tolerate abortion, don't want this imposed on them,” he said. -he declared. “His barbaric approach to celebrating something that the Catholic Church teaches categorically against was one of his many downfalls.”

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Carney said many Catholic voters were “uncomfortable” with the left “celebrating abortion.”

“I think the other thing that they ignored that always concerns American Catholics, no matter what you hear, is that morality matters,” he said. “And it doesn't matter how liberal or conservative a Catholic is. There's still a moral objectivity that makes people uncomfortable when it's celebrated by someone running for president.”

Pro-choice Arizona residents gather on a street corner. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Carney said other important issues were freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

“There is no doubt that Catholics were interested in free speech. And many people have criticized Donald Trump for many of his positions. He has been hesitant at times on abortion,” he said. -he declared. “But, by far, he was the most pro-life president ever, and he was the most pro-free speech president we've ever had.”

Carney pointed out that Trump advocated for the Little Sisters of the Poor incident after the religious organization was sued for failing to provide contraception.

“There was definitely this feeling: 'Look, if they go after Trump, if they go after Catholics, if they go after pro-lifers, it's just a “It's a matter of time before they find something in our lives that they don't like or agree with, and they come after us,” he said.

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“This was a huge victory for free speech for Catholics because the Biden-Harris administration, for the first time, Obama never did this. Clinton never did this. George W. Bush never did,” he said. “They targeted religious people, particularly Catholics, on the basis of their religion and the fact that they had the power to do so.

“And you can’t target Catholics and expect them to vote for you.”