Poll: Americans eager to vote for Catholics, women, minorities in 2016 — but not for atheists or socialists

A Gallup poll released Monday finds that voters are overwhelmingly on board with electing a Catholic, female, or minority president in 2016 — but they're still not so comfortable with ideological minorities like atheists and especially socialists.

The high support for potential Catholic candidates may be correlated with the popularity of Pope Francis, but it has not translated to good poll numbers for the most visibly Catholic candidate in the 2016 race, Rick Santorum. By contrast, self-described socialist Bernie Sanders — though still quite a long shot — is performing increasingly well against front-runner Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race.

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