Was Carter unappealing to Catholics?

[RINO Tom]

I think people overrate how much being a "Southern Baptist" would have put off non-Baptist voters in that era.  Evangelical Protestantism has practically militarized since then.  For example, I remember reading an interesting article that the assertion on behalf of fundamentalists that Christian tradition maintained that the Earth was only a few thousand years old and other interpretations were "backtracking" was originally only associated with the Seventh Day Adventists, yet Evangelicals adopted it militantly in the 1980s and beyond.  Just one example, but I think as the nation has become more secularized, so too have Evangelicals become more radical and intolerant of more traditional Christian diversity in thought.

All of this is to say that I don't think a Catholic Democrat would have seen voting for Carter as any more objectionable than voting for LBJ.  According to the NYT, Carter won White Catholics 52-46%, with no nominee after him doing as well with that group.