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What percentage of Trump supporters hold racist views according to polls?
Executive summary
Polling and academic analyses in the provided reporting show that sizable shares of Trump supporters express negative racial attitudes on specific questions — for example, a 2016 Reuters/Ipsos poll found “nearly half” of Trump supporters described Black people as more “violent” than whites [1], and a 2018 aggregation of YouGov/Economist/HuffPost data reported only 18% of Trump voters believed use of the N-word made white people racist and 42% found the word offensive [2]. Available sources do not provide a single authoritative percentage that captures “how many Trump supporters are racist” overall; different polls measure different attitudes and yield different slices of the question [1] [2] [3].
1. Polls measure different things — “racist” is not a single survey item
Polls cited in the materials ask specific attitude questions (e.g., is the N-word offensive; are Black people more “violent”; does race matter in policy), not a binary “are you racist” question; therefore results report percentages on particular beliefs, not a single overall prevalence of racism among Trump supporters [1] [2]. Reuters/Ipsos asked 21 race-attitude questions and found that “no more than 50 percent” of Trump supporters rated Black people negatively on any single trait, but nearly half labeled Black people as more “violent” [1]. The Newsweek summary of other polls highlights that only 18% of Trump voters thought using the N-word made white people racist — a very narrow metric that does not translate directly into an overall percent “racist” [2].
2. Numbers vary by question, wording and sample — don’t conflate items
Different surveys and question wordings produce different percentages. The Reuters/Ipsos 2016 polling of ~16,000 Americans showed substantial negative trait attributions toward Black people among Trump backers, but capped at under 50% on any one trait [1]. The 2018 polling reported by Newsweek and carried from YouGov/The Economist/HuffPost found large majorities of Trump voters did not see the N-word as making a white person racist and many did not find it offensive — yet those figures relate only to that slur and that moment [2]. Academic and policy analysis from Brookings frames the broader pattern: measures of anti-immigrant sentiment, racial resentment and sexism correlate strongly with Trump support, suggesting that multiple indicators of bias are predictive rather than a single prevalence figure [3].
3. Academic analysis links racial resentment to support — but it’s correlational
Brookings’ review of the literature concludes that anti-immigrant sentiment, racism and sexism are more strongly related to Trump support than some economic explanations, indicating that measured racial attitudes help predict who supports him [3]. That doesn’t provide a single share labeled “racist,” but it shows scholars find consistent correlations between specific racial attitudes and support for Trump [3].
4. Polls show perceptions of Trump’s racism, which is distinct from supporters’ views
AP polling reported that 57% of Americans considered Trump himself to be racist — a perception distinct from survey measures of his supporters’ attitudes [4]. Public opinion about the candidate and measured attitudes among his supporters are different metrics and should not be conflated [4].
5. Media summaries highlight troubling specific findings but stop short of a blanket percentage
Newsweek headlined that “most Trump voters don’t think using the N-word is racist,” a striking and newsworthy finding for that question, while Reuters highlighted that “nearly half” of Trump supporters described Black people as more violent — both specific, provocative statistics but both limited in scope [2] [1]. These items illustrate patterns but do not, by themselves, answer “what percentage are racist?” comprehensively.
6. What the available sources do not say or cannot determine
Available sources do not provide a single, consensus percentage of Trump supporters who are “racist” as a holistic trait; they report percentages for specific statements or attitudes [1] [2] [3]. No source here offers an agreed-upon operational definition or an aggregated index that converts those individual items into one overall prevalence number [1] [2] [3].
7. How to interpret and use these findings responsibly
Use poll items as indicators of patterns (e.g., considerable minorities or even near-majorities endorse particular negative stereotypes or minimize the offensiveness of racial slurs) rather than as definitive measures of a fixed trait across an entire group [1] [2] [3]. Scholars and reporters typically combine multiple items and contextual analysis to characterize the relationship between racial attitudes and political support; the available Brookings review recommends this multi-variable approach [3].
Bottom line: Reporting shows that significant portions of Trump supporters express problematic racial attitudes on specific questions (examples: “nearly half” called Black people more “violent” in Reuters/Ipsos; only 18% of Trump voters said use of the N-word makes a white person racist in the aggregated 2018 polls) — but the sources do not supply a single, definitive percentage that captures “how many Trump supporters hold racist views” in the aggregate [1] [2] [3] [4].