California's fifth consecutive Catholic governor exemplifies the faith's deep roots

LOS ANGELES (AP) — As he campaigned for California governor, Xavier Becerra reflected on the way his Catholic upbringing informs his politics. “The sanctity of life is something that’s really ingrained in you,” the Democrat and former U.S. health and human services secretary said earlier this year.

He then explained his rationale, confounding to some, for supporting abortion rights. Becerra exemplifies how Catholicism’s deep roots often go hand in hand with California’s progressive reputation. That complexity is a snapshot of a larger reality — that American Catholics are in many ways a politically mixed bag.

“There is no Catholic vote,” said David Gibson, the director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture. White evangelicals for Republicans or Black Protestants for Democrats are more politically reliable religious groups, he said.

With Becerra’s win this week, California has elected five consecutive Catholic governors — a remarkable streak indicative of Catholicism’s enduring influence. “Catholicism is part of the fabric of California culture the way Puritan Protestantism is part of the New England regions,” Gibson said.

Catholic voters — especially Latinos — helped elect Becerra, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of roughly 100,000 midterm voters. He became the state's first elected Latino governor.

Beginning with Gray Davis, who took office in 1999, four of those five governors also have been Democrats. Some have been more vocal about their faith than others — notably Jerry Brown, who was a seminarian in the 1950s.

California is home to more Catholics than any other U.S. state. A Pew Research Center poll in 2024 found that 25% of adults in California identify as Catholic, accounting for almost half of the state’s Christians.

But numbers aside, Catholicism has been woven into the fabric of the state for centuries.

From economically progressive strains of Catholic social teaching and explicit rejections of the death penalty to official teachings against abortion and in vitro fertilization, Catholic theology rarely fits neatly into political categories, which helps explain the unpredictable voting habits.

Take Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose strong support of abortion rights is at odds with Catholic leadership. Yet his announcement this week that he planned to change more than 500 death sentences in the state to life in prison without the possibility of parole was celebrated by the California Catholic Conference, the public policy organization representing the church in California.

“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us,” Newsom said in a public letter.

Some leaders within the church have subverted Trump administration policies, like San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas, who last year formally excused parishioners from their weekly obligation to attend Mass following immigration detentions on parish properties in the diocese.

Others have taken high-profile conservative stances, like San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who in 2022 barred U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic, from receiving Communion over her support of abortion rights.

About 2 in 10 voters in the California governor’s race were Catholic, and they mostly voted for Becerra, according to The AP Voter Poll. About 6 in 10 Catholic voters supported Becerra, while about 4 in 10 voted for his Republican opponent Steve Hilton.

About 7 in 10 Latino Catholics voted for Becerra, while white Catholics were split between Becerra and Hilton.

Those complex political patterns are also reflected nationally. Catholics were split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

That’s a modest shift from 2024, when just over half of U.S. Catholics voted for Trump, according to AP VoteCast.

Catholics in California are also ethnically diverse. Many are immigrants from Latin America and the Philippines. Resident Tracy Creighton's ancestry goes back to the missions founded more than two centuries ago by Spanish Franciscan priests.

As the mother of teenagers, Creighton has sought to pass on the importance of serving others and respecting nature — values she believes are both deeply Catholic and Californian.

“I feel in the last several years we have lost our way in terms of being of service to others,” she said, citing Saint Francis of Assisi as a model. “That is why I stay Catholic.”

Catholic faith, history and culture contribute to many Californians' understanding of themselves, such as their relationship to the 21 missions founded between 1769 and 1823.

“Obviously, the legacy of the missions is a mixed one and has problematic implications,” said Cecilia González-Andrieu, a theology professor at Loyola Marymount University. “For Latina theologians like myself, there’s a need for us to be able to hold that in tension, the fact that within our very selves we have this mix of cultures and bloods.”

Leaders are increasingly reckoning with that tension and how it should be communicated to young people. The history of the missions is included in the statewide public fourth-grade curriculum, which is often accompanied by a field trip to one.

A law signed by Newsom went into effect last year that requires schools to teach in social studies class about how missionaries mistreated Native Americans, and to share Native perspectives.

But mistreatment isn’t the only fraught legacy of the missionaries who arrived in the late 18th century.

“The mission system spread disease and was ill-equipped to deal with the immunological effects of old-world people and their immunities,” said William Deverell, a historian at the University of Southern California. “It’s your major consequential institutional moment which brings with it a horrible demographic decline of the Indigenous population.”

Despite their complicated legacy, the missions are landmarks. Many still operate as Catholic parishes.

The missions also helped influence the Spanish Colonial Revival style of homes that became signatures of California architecture. “Why I love California so much is the architecture and the beauty of it. And I think Catholicism plays a lot into that,” Creighton said.

Creighton says it’s difficult to overstate the significance of Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside, near San Diego, where she lives.

“Everyone does their homecoming pictures, their Christmas pictures. It’s just ingrained in us,” she said, adding that even non-Catholics will often take photos there. “It’s a landmark that’s important in who we are here.”

Beyond architecture, Catholic influence is all over many California homes.

Between the crucifixes and votive candles on display, Brian Murillo’s Fresno home is a testament to his Catholic upbringing. The state employee describes himself as a lapsed Catholic who stopped going to Mass because he felt the American church’s leadership was too aligned with Republican politics.

But Murillo, whose father is from Mexico, still says a Hail Mary or an Our Father prayer whenever he leaves the house.

“Sometimes I’ll be cleaning the house and I’ll be doing a prayer or in the car by myself,” he said. “It’s been such a part of my growing up, even to this day.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

FILE - San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, center left, celebrates Easter Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, April 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

FILE - Bishop Alberto Rojas of the Diocese of San Bernardino gives the homily at a memorial Mass for Pope Francis at Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral, April 25, 2025, in San Bernardino, Calif. (Terry Pierson/The Orange County Register via AP, File)

FILE - California Gov. Gavin Newsom, right, and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, left, visit the Divine Providence Chapel where Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero was assassinated by a gunman in 1980, during a part of their three-day visit in San Salvador, El Salvador, April 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

California Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra, center, accompanied by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President pro Tempore Monique Limon meet with reporters at the Capitol in Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

FILE - Democratic presidential candidate Jerry Brown, center, attends a church service at St. Cecilia Catholic church in Los Angeles, May 10, 1992. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A third-grade field trip to the Navajo Nation Council sparked Crystalyne Curley’s political ambition when she witnessed a fiery debate erupt between two tribal lawmakers.

“I thought to myself at a very young age, that’s where I want to be,” Curley said.

On Election Day, Curley surpassed that childhood dream and broke a barrier she says she never imagined as a nine-year-old: She was elected the first woman president of the Navajo Nation.

This week's elections brought a wave of milestone victories, from the nation’s first Black female governor to the first openly gay man and first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. It also marked a turning point for Native American women, whose leadership in their families and communities has rarely translated to formal political power.

Peggy Flanagan became the first Native American woman elected to the Senate, Deb Haaland the first to win a state governorship, and Curley the first to lead one of the largest tribes.

“This is a win for all Navajo women,” Curley told The Associated Press.

Jordan James Harvill, a Cherokee Nation citizen and strategist with the advocacy group Advance Native Political Leadership, said decades of political organizing are bearing fruit as more Native women run for and win office.

“This is a seismic shift that is happening in our communities,” he said.

Lene Bitsui supported Curley in the Navajo Nation election because she felt she was best positioned to restore order to the tribal government after what she sees as a period of dysfunction. But when Bitsui cast her ballot, she felt pessimistic.

“I thought our people weren't ready for a female president,” Bitsui said. “I was wrong, and I feel so happy to have been wrong.”

The modern, centralized Navajo government has been led by men since its establishment under federal pressure over a century ago. Navajo has the largest land base of any federally recognized tribe, spanning 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and is second in population to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

Some Navajo people believe traditional teachings prohibit women from holding top government positions. Others say women's absence from the presidency stands in contrast to the matrilineal structure of Diné society.

“You see the language of tradition used to both deride the possibility of a woman being president and to say that women’s leadership is needed now,” said Jennifer Nez Denetdale, a professor of Diné studies at the University of New Mexico.

Curley, who narrowly defeated attorney Justin Jones, according to unofficial results, told the AP she faced sexist rhetoric while campaigning and expects to be held to a higher standard as the first woman president.

“As women, we have to work twice or triple as hard, especially within Navajo politics,” said Curley, who also was the first female to lead the tribe's legislative branch as speaker of the tribal council.

After Curley and her running mate Chris Deschene take office in January, they plan to transition the Navajo Nation away from coal development, historically a major economic engine for the tribe, and reassert its leading role in national discussions around federal Indian policy.

The Seneca Nation of Indians in western New York also elected its first woman president, longtime council member Tina Abrams, on Tuesday.

At her Senate victory celebration in St. Paul, Minnesota, Democrat Flanagan, a citizen of the White Earth Nation and the state’s outgoing lieutenant governor, credited supporters from her community.

“I could not run for the U. S. Senate without Native women. I could not exist in the way that I do without Native women,” Flanagan said.

More than 230 years after the U.S. Senate was established, only four Native people have served in the chamber, all men.

“This is a win that shows we can break every single glass ceiling,” Harvill said.

Flanagan will join Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Cole, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. A victory for Democrat Mary Peltola, a Yup’ik woman, in Alaska's still unsettled Senate race, would mark the first time three Native people have served in the chamber simultaneously.

In the House, Kansas Democrat Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk, and Oklahoma Republican Josh Brecheen, Choctaw, won reelection. New York Democrat Claire Valdez, a citizen of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, and Michigan Democrat Sean McCann, a citizen of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, became the first Native Americans elected to represent their states in Congress.

Haaland’s political career has been defined by historic milestones. She was one of the first two Native women elected to Congress in 2018 before becoming the first Native American to lead a U.S. Cabinet agency, the Interior Department.

Now, in her home state of New Mexico, the Laguna Pueblo citizen, will break ground as the first female Native governor of a U.S. state.

“I think it's a long time coming,” said Haaland, who traces her ancestry in what is now New Mexico back 800 years.

She is tasked with making good on campaign promises to make life more affordable for struggling New Mexicans and addressing persistently poor education outcomes in the state.

Haaland, who is affectionately known as “Auntie Deb” in parts of Indian Country, was tearful reflecting on the support she has received from Native voters and other Native women in politics, including Davids and Flanagan.

“It makes me very happy that we're able to have a presence,” Haaland said. “It’s not just a slogan. It matters that people feel represented.”

This story is published through the Global Indigenous Reporting Network at The Associated Press.

FILE - In this photo taken with a smartphone, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Deb Haaland answers questions during an interview at her campaign headquarters in Albuquerque, N.M., on Friday, Oct. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, file)

FILE - Democratic Senate candidate Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, speaks at an election night event, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr, file)