Barack Obama got walloped by Pennsylvania Catholics yesterday. Still, shortly after the polls closed, the Obama camp began making the case that his 31-percent support among Catholics–compared to 69-percent for Hillary Clinton–represented a modest improvement from mid-March, when a Quinnipiac poll had Obama winning just 24-percent of Catholics.
Given the margins of error involved, God-o-Meter was skeptical of this argument. But Pankaj Prakash, Manager of Data Analysis at the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, says Quinnipiac polling shows Clinton dropped from a 50 point lead among white Pennysylvania Catholics in mid-March to a 37 point lead in a poll released Monday–and says it’s real a sign of Obama’s progress among Catholics.

“I did some statistical testing,” Prakash wrote God-o-Meter via email,”and I would say that taking into account the margin of errors, the change in the overall lead in the White Catholic subgroup is statistically significant at 95% confidence level between the two polls…. it would not be wrong to suggest that in our polling, Obama did show signs of progress among white Pennsylvania Catholics between March 18 and April 21.

To win elsewhere in the rust belt, Obama will have to make significantly more progress among Catholics. But it’s a start.

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