Hillary Clinton is challenging Donald Trump for a longstanding Republican voting bloc, white Roman Catholics, but her challenger isn't giving up without a fight.
"Trump is the exception to the rule," Carol Robinson, 67, a Catholic in suburban Philadelphia who supports Clinton, told The New York Times. "He's a loose cannon."
Robinson has long voted Republican, like Rose Benner, 85, who also lives outside the city.
"He’s a child, rude," she told the Times of Trump. "He doesn’t understand other people, and he sees women as play toys."
However, "I’m a Catholic, and I’m pro-life," Benner said.
"I have to vote for Trump because he will appoint Supreme Court justices.
"That’s the only reason," she added. "My whole family will vote for Trump because of that."
Clinton is reaching out to white Catholics because of recent polls showing Trump's support slipping with those voters, the Times reports.
A survey last week by Public Religion Research Institute showed Trump at 42 percent, compared with 46 percent for Clinton. The margin of error is 4 percent.
The poll was released days after a 2005 video surfaced with Trump making crude remarks about and talking about having sex with married women.
"That’s not where Trump wants to be in the homestretch, particularly with a core constituency in Midwestern battleground states," said Robert Jones, one of the institute's pollsters.
Trump has hit back, however, attacking hacked emails detailing critical comments by Clinton staffers about Catholic conservatism. Clinton highlights Trump's fitness issues.
In response, the Trump campaign has turned to former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a close confidant who is Catholic.
On "Face the Nation" on Oct. 9, host John Dickerson asked Giuliani, "Ever read the 'Confessions' of St. Augustine?"
"Men can change," he responded. "People can change."
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.