A new report has some intriguing factoids about Catholic voting patterns — and what may lie ahead later this year.

Like almost every other poll and projection, it bodes well for Obama:

lthough Catholic Democrats outnumber Catholic Republicans in the United States, both are outnumbered by the 41 percent of U.S. Catholic voters who are not affiliated with either party, according to new data from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

In a report titled “Election ’08 Forecast,” released June 20, CARA compared data on party identification and the social, political and moral views of the estimated 47 million potential Catholic voters in the November election.

Currently, 38 percent of Catholic voters identify themselves, either strongly or weakly, with the Democratic Party, while 21 percent said they were affiliated with the Republican Party, strongly or weakly.

“If Catholics stick to their current party identification when voting for president, (presumptive Democratic nominee Sen.) Barack Obama would have the potential edge over (presumptive Republican nominee Sen.) John McCain among Catholics by more than 8 million,” the report said, noting there would be 18 million Democrats compared to 10 million Republicans if they stay with their party affiliation.

But more than 19.5 million Catholics say they lean toward one party or the other, are independents, belong to third parties or are apolitical, the report said.

The data showed a decrease since 2004 in the percentage of Catholics affiliated with both parties. Four years ago, 39 percent of Catholics said they were Democrats and 31 percent said they were Republicans, with only 30 percent unaffiliated with either party.

The margin of error for the 2004 and 2008 data was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The report disputed the belief — based only on exit polls — that Catholics have “a near perfect winning streak” in backing the winner in recent presidential elections. By also using data from the American National Election Studies and Gallup polls, CARA found that Catholics voted for the winner in the overall popular vote 71 percent of the time between 1952 and 2004 and the Electoral College winner 64 percent of the time.

“In the past five elections, a majority of Catholics voted with the winning candidate only when Bill Clinton was on the ballot,” the report said.

CARA also found major shifts in Catholics’ attitudes between 2002 and 2006 on two issues — the use of military force to overthrow governments that support terrorism and increased taxes for “the wealthiest Americans.”

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