Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the black sheep of America’s most well-known Catholic family, is urging the faithful to support former President Trump in a new TV ad.
Kennedy, who first challenged President Biden for the Democrat nomination and then ran as an independent, discusses his faith in the $250,000 ad spot before giving reasons why he now supports Trump for the presidency.
“President Trump has promised to take bold action on our economy, on the border and on restoring children’s health. The Democratic Party has become the party of war, censorship and corruption,” RFK Jr. says.
“Catholics may disagree on many issues, but we must find a way to love our children more than we hate each other. I hope you’ll join me in supporting Donald Trump.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former President Trump shake hands during a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena on August 23, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
The ad, released by the conservative group CatholicVote, is set to air in Pennsylvania before a wider release in swing states, Semafor reported. It comes less than two weeks before a historically tight election in which Catholic voters could very well determine who next occupies the White House.
CatholicVote President Brian Burch has criticized Harris’ position on abortion, noting the practice violates Catholic social teaching. In a recent interview with NBC News, the vice president said she does not support any concessions on the abortion issue, including religious exemptions for faith-based health care providers who have a conscientious objection to the procedure.
“I think Kamala Harris is making a massive gamble. She’s calculating that she can build a winning coalition without people of faith,” Burch told Fox News Digital in an interview Wednesday. He acknowledged that Trump has also “disappointed” some pro-life voters by opposing a federal ban on abortion but said, “I think Trump’s comments are reflecting where the public is and that there is no consensus abortion.”
According to Semafor, the collaboration with Kennedy came after months of conversations with CatholicVote talking through their positions on abortion. Burch told the outlet that Kennedy ultimately agreed “we need to be spending an equal amount of money on helping women choose to keep their child as we are on helping them to get abortions.”
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
The pro-Trump ad comes as the Trump campaign is actively courting Catholic voters. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, a Catholic convert, penned an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Thursday that accused Harris of harboring “prejudice against Catholics.”
“Last week, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, one of Vice President Kamala Harris’s top surrogates, mocked the sacrament of the Eucharist in a cringey skit with a podcaster. Last Thursday, Ms. Harris became the first presidential candidate since 1984 to skip the annual Al Smith dinner, a fundraising event that benefits Catholic Charities,” Vance wrote.
“The first insults Catholics, while the latter displays a more subtle disregard for an important Catholic cultural event, one that raises money for social services that aid people in need, including people with disabilities and refugees and immigrants. Both show the Harris campaign’s anti-Catholic bigotry.”
A handful of key battleground states this election cycle have huge Catholic populations. About 24% of the Pennsylvania population, which has been touted as the state that will likely determine the overall outcome of the election, identifies as Catholic; about 25% of the population in Nevada identifies as Catholic; 18% in Michigan; 21% in Arizona; and 25% in Wisconsin. Other notable battleground states have a smaller Catholic population, including Georgia and North Carolina, both of which have a roughly 9% population of Catholics.
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Vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, wrote an op-ed accusing Vice President Harris of “prejudice” against Christians. (New York Times screenshot)
Catholics historically voted for Democrats until the 1960s and early 1970s, when crime and cultural issues came to the fore alongside economic concerns, most notably in 1972 when President Richard Nixon’s campaign slammed Democrat opponent Sen. George McGovern as a candidate who supported “amnesty, abortion and acid.”
Today, Catholic voters are evenly split between the two parties, and whichever side captures the majority is usually the side that wins the White House.
President Biden, the second Catholic president in the nation’s history (after John F. Kennedy), won the Catholic vote over Trump in 2020 by about five percentage points. In 2016, Trump won the voting bloc at 52% support compared to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 44% Catholic support. Former President Obama won the Catholic vote in both 2008 and 2012, as did former President George W. Bush in his 2004 election against John Kerry, Pew Research data shows.
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The exception to the rule came in 2000, when former Vice President Al Gore won the Catholic vote by two points over Bush despite losing the presidential election overall.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.
