83% of Catholics, 51% of Protestants Would Vote for Jew As U.S. President

Eighty-three percent of the Catholics in America and 51 percent of the Protestants indicated in a Gallup Poll taken in 1966 that they would vote for a Jew as President of the United States. The results of the poll were made public in the current issue of Catholic Digest, a monthly publication.

In 1952, a similar study was done with the results showing that 57 percent of the Catholics and 31 percent of the Protestants declared that they would vote for a Jewish candidate for President. In the 1966 poll, 9 percent of Jews and an equal ratio of Catholics thought that “Protestants stick together.” Asked whether the respondents thought that “Jews stick together,” 43 percent of the Catholics said they did think so in 1966, as against 48 percent in 1952. Among the Protestants the figures were 37 percent in 1966 and 46 percent in 1952.

The Catholic Digest reported that 90 percent of the Jews said in 1952 they were as willing to vote for a Protestant for President as for a man of their own religion. In 1966, 92 percent of the Jewish respondents said they would vote for a Protestant. The responses on election to the Presidency came as the result of a question reading: “Would you as soon vote for a Jew for President of the U.S. as for someone of your own religion?”

The surveys in both years — 1966 and 1952 — also asked whether Catholics, Protestants and Jews in the U.S.A. were “seeking too much power.” In 1952, 35 percent of the Protestants and 33 percent of the Catholics thought the Jews “seek too much power,” while in 1966 those percentages were 14 for the Protestants and 12 for Catholics.

“Although America is not really a Protestant country, as many suppose” the Catholic publication declared, “the idea that good Protestants make good citizens seems to be accepted, not only by the Protestants themselves, but by Catholics and Jews as well. Those who regard Catholics and Jews as races apart from the prevailing cultural stream are becoming fewer.”

Citing the figures and the 1966-1952 comparisons, the Catholic Digest stated: “But prejudice dies hard, especially where political power is concerned, though we have made a great deal of progress toward complete religious tolerance in the last 14 years. Catholics and Jews have convinced large numbers of their neighbors that, although they may be different, they are not necessarily any less patriotic or less able than others.”