have certain catholics been voting republican for longer than we think?

[freepcrusher]

Me thinks so, people talk about catholics being new to the republican coalition with Reagan but they had occasionally voted republican in the past too. In my 1974 almanac, there were several catholic republican congressman I can think of off the top of my head:
Margaret Heckler (MA)
Silvio Conte (MA)
James Grover (NY)
Angelo Roncallo (NY)
Joseph Maraziti (NJ)
Ed Derwinski (IL)
John Erlenborn (IL)
Bill Archer (TX)

election returns also show that Eisenhower won the Catholic vote both times. Also, there was evidence they were voting republican before the great depression (or before 1928) as most of the urban northern cities were very republican until 1928. There used to be a lot of big city ethnic republican machines in those days.

Lastly, I think it has to do with ethnicity. There are a lot of Catholic areas in western Ohio that are of mostly German ancestry that have gone republican since the end of the Great Depression and where there was a strong isolationist streak. It also seems that there were a lot of upwardly mobile Italian Catholics who dominated the local GOP in areas like Nassau and Suffolk County as well as Richmond Counties in New York. For the most part it seems that the most loyal democrat catholics were the Irish and the Poles. The Mexicans were/are very loyal too but there weren't that many back then to matter.