Antkowiak, LauraLayman, Geoffrey C.2023-11-212023-11-212014-08-21http://hdl.handle.net/11603/30823American Political Science Association 2014 Annual Meeting; Washington, DC; September 28–31, 2014American Catholics are often described as a “cross-pressured” constituency, pulled toward Democrats on social welfare issues but toward Republicans on cultural issues like abortion. While research suggests that this image does not fit most Catholics, we know little about the characteristics and political behavior of Catholics that do share their bishops’ pro-life, pro-welfare views. This paper addresses that gap. Using the American National Election Studies pooled over 1992-2008, we first show that commitment to the Catholic faith increases the likelihood that Americans profess pro-life, pro-welfare policy preferences. We also describe the presidential voting of pro-life, pro-welfare Catholics and test hypotheses regarding how they cope with cross-pressures. We find that the relative salience of abortion and social welfare is an important predictor of the presidential votes of the most religiously committed among them. We also find that many appear to rationalize their votes by misperceiving their candidate’s policy position on the issue where they disagree.42 pagesen-USThis item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.Text