Why is California so Catholic unlike Texas or Florida?

[RINO Tom]

Florida also historically has much less influence from Spanish colonization---outside of St. Augustine the state had very little Spanish settlement and was intermittently controlled by England too. Thus, unlike Texas or California, most of the Hispanophone influence is from recent immigrants.

Yeah, I remember reading one time that before the invention of the air conditioner, Florida was much more "Southern" culturally than nearly every other Southern state.

[RINO Tom]

Texas is very Catholic, at about 23%. Compare this with California, which is 28% Catholic. Both states have Protestant pluralities. I'd say the difference between them isn't that statistically significant.

I think more people assume that California is significantly more Catholic because its non-Catholic Christians are much more divided than Texas' non-Catholic Christians:

TEXAS
50% Protestant (30% Evangelical, 14% Mainline, 6% Historically Black)
23% Catholic
1% Mormon
2% Other Christian

CALIFORNIA
32% Protestant (18% Evangelical, 12% Mainline, 2% Historically Black)
28% Catholic
1% Mormon
1% Orthodox

Thinking of major Christian groups that would cluster together culturally, Catholics in California (28%) are 10% higher than Evangelicals and 16% higher than Mainline Protestants.  Conversely, Catholics in Texas are still 7% behind Evangelicals when you break out every Protestant group, and they are only 7% ahead of Mainline Protestants, too.  I think Catholics would feel like a minority against a "Protestant majority" a lot more in Texas than they would in California.  This obviously doesn't even touch on the "Unaffiliated" populations, which I am guessing drew mainly from former Mainline Protestants in California.

P.S.  If anyone checks the Pew website, yes I absolutely removed any Lutherans, Methodists or Presbyterians from the "Evangelical" category for both states.  Having "conservative" beliefs does not mean a group like Missouri Synod Lutherans don't belong in the category with other Lutherans (signed, someone baptized as a Missouri Synod Lutheran).