Pope Leo XIV has become the first pontiff known to vote in a US election, the Vatican confirmed on Friday, casting a postal ballot in the midterms. The November 3 elections will decide control of Congress for the last two years of President Donald Trump’s term. They come amidst a rift between the pope and Trump over the US-Israel war on Iran and immigration.
In a statement, the Holy See Press Office said Leo had exercised his right to vote as a US citizen “whenever he was eligible to do so.” It described the ballot as consistent with a long-standing practice of civic participation on his part. The press office added that he had also voted in Peru during his years of residence there. It ended by stating that the Holy Father believes in “the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes.” The statement did not say how he voted, while Leo has made no personal comment.
How it came to light
Local radio station WJOL first reported on October 23 that Leo had requested a mail ballot. The Chicago Sun-Times then reported that Robert Francis Prevost, the pope’s birth name, was still registered in Illinois. A Will County clerk’s official said he had asked for the ballot on October 3, according to NCR, listing a New Lenox address. Illinois lets any registered voter vote by post without giving a reason.
The Vatican did not say how the ballot was returned. His brother John, in Rome on a pilgrimage with an Illinois parish, could have taken it home for him. The ballot includes Governor JB Pritzker’s re-election bid, and Pritzker tweeted that if the pope could vote from Vatican City, anyone could. Vatican’s announcement came as Trump has sought to cast doubt on mail-in voting.
What earlier popes did
No earlier pope is known to have voted while in office, though that does not prove none ever did. America magazine reported that, as far as is known, none of Leo’s immediate predecessors voted in their homelands during their pontificates. Francis kept his Argentine citizenship and renewed his passport in 2014, but there is no public record that he voted. There are likewise no confirmed records of Benedict XVI or John Paul II voting in Germany or Poland while pope. Axios suggested Leo may be the first pontiff to vote in any secular democratic election. One commentator cautioned that the Vatican’s statement does not prove no reigning pope ever cast a ballot. The question is complicated by the pope’s status as head of state of Vatican City, which holds no elections.
Leo is a naturalised Peruvian citizen and served as a bishop there from 2014 to 2023. The Vatican’s reference to his “years of residence” in Peru implies he did not vote in the country’s general elections in April.
The request came ten days before Leo, 71, underwent surgery on October 13 at Rome’s Gemelli hospital to remove the lower lobe of his right lung. Doctors diagnosed lung adenocarcinoma, and the Vatican says the tumour was localised and needs no further treatment. He was discharged on October 17. The Vatican cancelled a October 27 trip to Assisi, avoiding a helicopter flight on doctors’ advice. It says his November 6-17 tour of Uruguay, Argentina and Peru will go ahead unchanged.
A voting record under scrutiny
His voting history emerged after his election in May 2025. Will County records show that he voted in Republican primaries in 2012, 2014 and 2016, and in no Democratic primary in that period. According to the state elections board, he requested Democratic primary ballots in 2008 and 2010, while registered in Cook County. He did not vote in the 2020 presidential election or the 2022 midterms, but cast an absentee ballot in 2024. Illinois has no party registration, and the county lists him as “undeclared”. Primary ballots do not show whom a voter backed in the general election.
The clash with Trump
The vote follows a bitter exchange in April. After Trump warned that “a whole civilization will die tonight” unless Iran struck a deal, Leo called the threat “truly unacceptable”. Days later, at a peace vigil, he denounced a “delusion of omnipotence” he said was fuelling the war, without naming Trump or the US.
Trump hit back on Truth Social, calling the pope “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy”. He told Leo to be “a Great Pope, not a Politician”. Leo replied that he did not see his role as political and had no wish to debate the president. “I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel,” he told reporters. Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that he was “disheartened” by Trump’s words and that the pope is not a politician.
Trump won 55 per cent of Catholic voters in 2024, according to AP VoteCast. Leo and the US bishops have also spoken out against the “vilification” of immigrants. The bishops’ conference welcomed the vote, saying it sets an example that encourages Catholics to take part.
