Catholic Voters, Especially Latinos, Helped Elect Becerra as California Governor, AP Poll Finds

Catholic voters, especially Latinos, helped elect Xavier Becerra as California governor, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of roughly 100,000 midterm voters. Becerra became the state’s first elected Latino governor. About 6 in 10 Catholic voters backed him, while about 4 in 10 supported his Republican opponent, Steve Hilton. About 7 in 10 Latino Catholics voted for Becerra, and white Catholics were split between the two candidates.

Becerra, a Democrat and former U.S. health and human services secretary, said earlier this year that the sanctity of life is deeply ingrained in him. He has also supported abortion rights, a position that some find difficult to reconcile with his Catholic upbringing. David Gibson, director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture, said there is no single Catholic vote. White evangelicals and Black Protestants, he noted, tend to vote more predictably for one party.

California has now elected five consecutive Catholic governors. Beginning with Gray Davis, who took office in 1999, four of those five have been Democrats. Jerry Brown, who was a seminarian in the 1950s, has been among the more openly vocal about his faith. A 2024 Pew Research Center poll found that 25% of California adults identify as Catholic, a larger share than in any other state.

Catholic teaching does not fit neatly into political categories. Gov. Gavin Newsom strongly supports abortion rights, a stance at odds with Catholic leadership. Yet the California Catholic Conference, the public policy organization representing the church in the state, praised his announcement that he planned to change more than 500 death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In a public letter, Newsom said, “I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us.”

Some church leaders have taken positions in opposition to Trump administration policies. San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas last year formally excused parishioners from their weekly obligation to attend Mass after immigration detentions on parish properties in the diocese. Others have taken high-profile conservative stands. In 2022, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone barred U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic, from receiving Communion over her support of abortion rights.

Many California Catholics are immigrants from Latin America and the Philippines, and the state’s Catholic community also reflects deep historical roots. Tracy Creighton’s ancestry goes back to the missions founded more than two centuries ago by Spanish Franciscan priests. As the mother of teenagers, she has tried to pass on the importance of serving others and respecting nature, values she considers both Catholic and Californian. “I feel in the last several years we have lost our way in terms of being of service to others,” she said, citing Saint Francis of Assisi as a model. Her emphasis on service is a lesson in neighbor-love (Matthew 25:35).

The mission legacy remains complicated. Cecilia González-Andrieu, a theology professor at Loyola Marymount University, said the missions have “problematic implications” and that people with mixed cultural heritage must hold that tension. A state law signed by Newsom requires schools to teach how missionaries mistreated Native Americans and to share Native perspectives. William Deverell, a University of Southern California historian, said the mission system spread disease and contributed to a severe decline in the Indigenous population. Many of the 21 missions, founded between 1769 and 1823, still operate as Catholic parishes.

Catholic influence also appears in daily life. Brian Murillo, a Fresno state employee who describes himself as a lapsed Catholic, said he stopped attending Mass because he felt the American church’s leadership was too aligned with Republican politics. Still, he said, “Sometimes I’ll be cleaning the house and I’ll be doing a prayer or in the car by myself. It’s been such a part of my growing up, even to this day.”

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