Kamala Harris' Radical, Inflexible Policies Lost Her the Catholic Vote
America has narrowly dodged a bigot.
Throughout Kamala Harris ' presidential campaign, the incumbent vice president made no attempts to appeal to Catholic voters. Instead, she insulted us all the way to the finish line.
Just weeks before Election Day, Harris snubbed the Al Smith Dinner—the year's most high-profile Catholic charitable event, which is attended by politicians from both sides of the aisle and which no presidential candidate from either major party has skipped since Walter Mondale was routed in 1984. Harris opted instead to send in a cringey, dead-pan video mocking Catholic school girls and cracking bad jokes about the Last Supper.
Shortly thereafter, Harris tripped over herself in an interview to ensure viewers knew that she believed there should be no concessions for religious freedom and conscience rights when it comes to abortion. She couldn't even wait until her interviewer finished the question to make clear she thinks Catholic doctors should be forced to perform abortions, an extreme view even for the most ardent of pro-choicers.
The response was hardly surprising—Harris' career is built on a no-concessions record when it comes to religious liberty. Religious freedom is not something you concede; it is the inherent right of every person, one that precedes the state and any government official. But that has never meant anything to Harris.
As attorney general of California, Harris advocated for the Reproductive FACT Act, which would have required pregnancy centers—many of which are church-affiliated—to advertise and refer for abortion in direct violation of their mission and the consciences of their employees. She also asked the Supreme Court to require religious employers, including Catholic nuns , to pay for abortion and other things they believed to be immoral in their health care plans or be fined into oblivion.
While in the Senate , Harris was an original cosponsor of the Equality Act , a bill that would have gutted the religious liberty of churches and religiously affiliated schools, charities, adoption agencies, and other institutions that took the "wrong" view of gender. She also was lead sponsor of legislation that would have required health care workers to perform a whole slew of procedures that violate their religious beliefs. And she harassed Catholic nominees before the Senate, once suggesting that a judicial nominee should give up his membership in the Knights of Columbus , a Catholic charitable organization, in order to be confirmed.
The problem for Harris is that a no-concessions approach doesn't really work in a political system built on compromise.
It didn't take voters long to figure out that Harris is not interested in working with anyone who disagrees with her.
In a September New York Times poll that should have been a canary in the coal mine for Harris' campaign, almost half of voters polled said Harris "is too far to the left." The same percentage said Donald Trump , on the other hand, was "'not too far' to the left or right on the issues." Maybe people didn't care for Trump. But they cared even less for someone who was just too politically extreme.
This poll would have been an opportune moment to start extending political olive branches. Instead, Harris just extended her political scorn, including towards Catholics, the biggest religious voting bloc in the country, two-thirds of whom are Independent or Democrat-affiliated.
Harris paid for her no-concessions approach with the ultimate concession on election night when Trump won Catholics by double digits nationally.
President-elect Trump should take heed. His first administration did an excellent job of shoring up religious liberty and outreach to Catholics.
And Trump continued his overtures towards Catholics on the campaign trail, playing "Ave Maria" over the loudspeakers at a campaign rally and posting the St. Michael prayer on his Instagram and X accounts.
Those are welcome gestures, but what we really need is a clear and concrete commitment to protect the civil liberties of Catholics. This commitment used to be a given from Republican candidates, but the party has noticeably changed and is not the vanguard of social values and religious freedom it once was.
A good starting point would be for Trump to assure Catholic hospitals, employers, and health care companies that they would not be forced to provide or cover in vitro fertilization, something the president-elect has pledged to support universally. The Catholic Church explicitly opposes the practice because it destroys innocent unborn life, and already has lawsuit fatigue from the Obama and Biden years, during which Catholic groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor were told to cover abortion in their employees' health plans, or else.
Trump was arguably elected not because he was the average voter's ideal candidate, but because he stood up to the "no-concessions" radicalism that left a sour taste in the mouths of a populace whose views are far closer to the center of the political spectrum and who comprise the decisive margin in American elections.
At that center is religious freedom, a foundational American principle and right that inherently belongs to each of us. President Trump is now tasked with safeguarding it.
Ashley McGuire is a Senior Fellow with The Catholic Association and co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show, " Conversations with Consequences ."
The views expressed in this are the writer's own.
