Election 2024: Has Donald Trump’s evangelical bloc become stronger?

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While observers and the media think that evangelical support for Donald Trump may drive away believers, the new data tells a different story: Trump’s presence in politics could drive a white evangelical resurrection in America.

According to the latest figures from the Pew Research Center, between 2016 and 2020 the number of white American adults surveyed who identified as evangelical rose from 25% to 29% a 4% increase, overall.

While 2% of white American adults who embraced the evangelical label when surveyed after the 2016 presidential election were no longer identified as evangelicals after the 2020 election, a full 6% did not identify as evangelical in 2016. identified themselves as such when they surveyed again in 2020. That is to say, more white American adults began to identify as evangelicals during the Trump presidency than those who stopped.

During the same period, the number of white non-evangelical Protestants dropped by 3%.

Pew also reported that 16% of white Americans who did not consider themselves evangelical in 2016 but had a warm view of Trump, in 2020, came to embrace the evangelical or reborn label, Pew reported. In comparison, only 1% of white Americans with a cold or neutral view of Trump began to identify as evangelical at the same time.

We can’t deduce the causality as to why people who became evangelists became evangelicals, but we can say that, among Trump’s opponents, almost none became evangelists, said Gregory A. Smith, associate director of research at Pew. I thought that was a very interesting data point.

Although 12% of white evangelicals expressed any skepticism about Trump giving the evangelical label between 2016 and 2020, only 7% of consistent Trump supporters did. While this difference is too small to be statistically significant, Pew concluded the report, There is no clear evidence that White evangelicals who oppose Trump are more likely than Trump supporters to leave evangelical.

The study confirmed the closer relationship between white evangelical Protestants and the Republican Party a relationship that crystallized during Trump’s presidency by evangelical leaders who rallied around him. The former president also has an evangelical advisory board, which includes the televangelist and head of a Pentecostal megachurch, Rev. Fr. Paula White.

White evangelical Protestants have long been one of the most conservative Republicans, Smith said. In the last 25 years they have grown more Republican. It is interesting and important that you see the growing writing between evangelical identity and political attitudes.

While at first glance the data may suggest that support for Trump is fueling the rise in those who identify as evangelical, Smith said there may be more about white evangelicals collaborating around the Republican Party, as is the case with non Mitt Romneys ’expected popularity among white evangelical Protestants. in 2012.

The survey sample was a subset of a larger group and included only participants in four surveys conducted between 2016 and 2020, but did not include people under the age of 18 in 2016 or 2020. The portion of white Americans being recognized as evangelicals is greater than the share that stopped being recognized as white evangelicals we can say this with confidence, Smith said.

He added that this reflects more general religious trends in America. Although the proportion of white Christians, on the whole, has decreased in recent decades due to changing countries in demographics as well as the increase in non-affiliated white evangelical numbers are maintained or still rising.

Pew also found that white voters identified as evangelists in both 2016 and 2020 were more supportive of Trump during his re-election bid than when he ran against Hillary Clinton. The increased support for this group, Pew notes, is a key reason Trump did better with white evangelical voters in 2020 than he did in 2016.

This is likely to lurk for Trumps 2024 election prospects. Although Trump has not yet officially announced that he will run again as president, many observers believe he will. Among the signs, in addition to the money he has accumulated: Earlier this month, Trump launched a National Faith Advisory Board, co -founded by Rev White.

Looking ahead to 2024, Smith said, I can’t think about the future. But something jumped me from the data that there was certainly no indication that Trump lost support to White evangelicals between 2016 and 2020. If anything, he gained support from that group during his time in office.

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