Fun with Polling Data

For those of you who are interested in such things,
Gallup/>/> has done some interesting subgroup breakdowns of support for the leading Democratic and Republican candidates for President.  Hillary Clinton, for example, leads among virtually every single sub-category among Democrats one can think of.  Rudy Giuliani has strong leads in most of the Republican categories, but he appears more vulnerable in the South and among older voters.

Here is the data point I found intriguing.  Roman Catholics are contributing significantly to Giulianis strong lead.  Among Protestants, Giuliani leads Fred Thompson by a mere six points, less than his eight point lead in the overall poll.  Among Catholics, however, Giuliani crushes his nearest rival (Fred Thompson again) 44% to 18%.

There is no question that there are probably other factors at work than religion alone (e.g. class, geography, ethnicity, church attendance etc.) in explaining Giulianis strong support among Catholics.  But this is still an interesting data point.  Catholic Republicans appear to be supporting Giuliani in large numbers despite the well-known tensions between his positions and that of the Church on a number of issues.  Id be very interested to know what the numbers look like for those who attend mass weekly.