Today was the 50th anniversary of JFK’s famous address to Greater Houston Ministerial Association, in which he reaffirmed his belief in the separation of church and state. This occasion raises the question of whether his Catholicism help or hurt in his 1960 race against RN. We can get a rough-and-ready answer by looking at Gallup survey data. Among Protestants, he picked up just one point over Adlai Stevenson’s showing in 1956. Among Catholics, the gain was a whopping 27 percent. The Catholic vote enabled him to win key states in the Northeast and Midwest, and probably tipped the overall popular tally as well.