| Abortion was named as a "very important" priority by 49 percent of Catholics who expect to vote for President George W. Bush, coming behind Iraq, terrorism, moral values and the economy, each of which was named by at least 64 percent in a recent Pew poll.
The poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press asked voters nationwide to list their highest priorities this election year. Participants typically named more than one topic and their accumulated responses were presented according to what percentage of people named them.
The data was then divided according to whether the participants said they expect to vote for Bush, for Bush's Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry, or had not yet decided.
The priorities of voters for Bush and Kerry, as well as swing voters, had four topics in common among the top five: economy, terrorism, education and Iraq, albeit with different degrees of importance.
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Catholics who expect to vote for Kerry named health care, the economy, Iraq, the federal budget deficit, education and terrorism as their highest priorities. At least 74 percent of Catholic supporters of Kerry named each of those. Abortion was named as a priority for probable Kerry-voting Catholics 40 percent of the time.
Catholic voters who have not yet made up their minds about the presidential race gave top priority to health care, followed by the economy, terrorism, Iraq and the federal budget deficit. All those topics were named by at least 66 percent of Catholics who are still deciding.
Among those swing voters, abortion was named as a very important priority by 45 percent.
Mercy Sister Mary Bendyna, executive director of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, noted that the Pew study affirms other polls showing the economy is still the No. 1 priority for most voters.
A Zogby poll also conducted in early August found the top five priorities by voters to be: jobs and the economy, the war on terrorism and security, the war in Iraq, health care and foreign policy. That poll had people identify a single top priority.
In Pew's entire voter sampling, the priorities of voters for Bush and Kerry, as well as swing voters, had four topics in common among the top five: economy, terrorism, education and Iraq, albeit with different degrees of importance.
 Bush
voters had moral values as their fifth item, while Kerry voters
and swing voters both included health care as the fifth among
priorities.
The pollsters further broke down the segments of Catholic voters to discern the priorities of Hispanic Catholics and for white Catholics who attend Mass weekly or less often.
Within the subgroups from the 235 Bush supporters, abortion was the most-mentioned priority among Hispanic Catholics. Among white, weekly Massgoers, Iraq was named as a priority by 90 percent and abortion was named a top priority by 70 percent.
Among the subgroups of the 319 Kerry voters, white Catholics who attend Mass weekly named the federal deficit as their highest priority. Abortion was named a top priority by 27 percent. Hispanic Catholic Kerry supporters named the economy most often.
The entire Pew poll queried 1,512 adults by phone between Aug. 5 and 10. Participants were selected to meet established demographic characteristics. For the whole poll sample, the statistical margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. The margin of error increases as the sample size diminishes.
---CNS
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