Who’s zoomin’ who? Trump camp says Kam in Catholic crunch

For the Donald Trump campaign, Kamala Harris’ sketchy stance with members of the Catholic Church is beyond simple atonement or an Act of Contrition.

Indeed, with hours to go before the all-important Al Smith Dinner, Team Trump is steamed about the veep skipping the meal and believes Catholics — who’ve already been less than enthusiastic about the Democrat’s disengagement — will be even more turned off by her not being at the event.

While Cardinal Timothy Dolan said Harris will be there virtually — “sending one of those Zooms or something” — the Trump camp is betting that for members of the Catholic Church, absence won’t make the heart grow fonder for the veep and her proposed New Way Forward from the administration she’s been a central part of for nearly four years.

“For the first time since 1984, a presidential candidate has declined the annual Al Smith Charity Dinner. Why? Her radical policies are fundamentally at odds with Catholic teachings, and her history of anti-Catholic rhetoric has further alienated this crucial voting bloc,” says the Make America Great Again PAC.

How alienated are Catholics?

The former president is up by 5 points overall in crucial battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, per recent National Catholic Register polling.

He’s up double digits in Michigan and Wisconsin, two blue-wall states Harris must win to have a path to 270 electoral votes according to many analysts. And he’s up 16 points with white Catholics.

Yet another poll from the Pew Research Center shows a 5-point gap overall with Catholics for Harris nationwide, with 61% of believers backing the man from Mar-a-Lago.

MAGA’s analysis attributes that attrition to Harris being “SO radical” — “her Catholic hate permeates SO much of her campaign.”

“By not attending the annual Al Smith Charity Dinner, she’s sending a powerful message to Catholics: That they aren’t welcome in her coalition. The dinner, a long-standing tradition benefiting Catholic Charities, has seen every presidential candidate accept the invitation — until now,” the Trump PAC adds.

Harris’ alleged offenses are compound, per the Trump camp, including but not limited to attacks on the Knights of Columbus as she grilled the former president’s judicial nominees about their membership in the cornerstone Catholic group while she was a California senator. She also moved to shut down the Little Sisters of the Poor for, in the Trump team’s terms, “refusing to conform to radical leftist beliefs on gender identity.”

And as attorney general, she used her enforcement power to drive six California Catholic hospitals “out of business.”

It’s not just the Trump campaign that’s sounding warnings.

“Kamala’s definitely been impacted negatively by a lack of support from Catholic voters,” Ryan Girdusky, a GOP strategist and Catholic, told The Post recently. “She’s polling worse than Joe Biden among a very important demographic. They are the largest single church in America, the Catholic vote will help decide the presidency.”

The Trump camp expects to capitalize on the Democrat’s doldrums with the demo, saying “Harris’ absence from the Al Smith Dinner and abandonment of Catholic families will result in Catholics abandoning her on November 5th.”

Ironically, Catholics aren’t the only religious group Harris is struggling with.

The veep is also mired in a Muslim malaise, with Green Party candidate Jill Stein leading Harris among the group in six battleground states overall, 30% to 28%, per Council on American-Islamic Relations polling.

Trump led Harris 46% to 42% in a poll of Arab Americans from the Arab-American Institute this fall.

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