What percentage of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in 2020?
Executive summary
Multiple reputable post-2020 surveys and exit polls place white evangelical support for Donald Trump in the neighborhood of roughly 75–84 percent, with many mainstream summaries settling on “about eight in ten” as the simplest way to describe the result [1] [2] [3].
1. The headline figure: roughly eight in ten
Major outlets and large surveys repeatedly reported that about eight in ten white evangelical voters backed Trump in 2020: AP VoteCast framed it as “about 8 in 10” white evangelical Christian voters for Trump [4], AP’s post-election VoteCast coverage reiterated the same round figure [1], and multiple news organizations used that shorthand when summarizing the coalition that propelled Trump [5] [6].
2. The numbers diverge by methodology — exit polls vs. validated surveys
Not all measures are identical: traditional exit-poll snapshots showed somewhat lower support in some presentations (for example, a commonly cited exit-poll-based headline put support near 75 percent) [2], while survey analyses that validate voter records or use large samples sometimes reported higher shares — Pew’s analyses and validated-voter work reported figures in the low-80s (82–84 percent in different Pew items) [7] [3]. The Americans Survey Center and AP VoteCast summaries also land near 81 percent, illustrating that methodological choices — question wording, how “evangelical” is defined, weighting and whether the sample is validated against actual votes — produce the modest spread in published figures [8] [1].
3. Who says what and why the gap matters
Different organizations frame that spread differently: mainstream news outlets like AP and PBS emphasize the “about eight in ten” consensus drawn from AP VoteCast [4] [6], academic and research groups such as Pew break out subgroups (registered voters, frequent attenders, validated voters) and sometimes report slightly higher percentages [7] [3], while exit-poll reporting (used by many newspapers early on) sometimes yielded the lower 75–76 percent estimates [2] [9]. That variation matters because political strategists, scholars and clergy interpret whether evangelical loyalty to Trump was eroding, steady, or even strengthening — small percentage differences can be politically consequential in tight states and in narratives about whether cultural or policy priorities drive the vote [9] [10].
4. Interpreting the political meaning beyond the percentage
Beyond the headline percent, analysts agree on the qualitative reality: white evangelicals comprised a sizable share of the electorate and voted overwhelmingly Republican in 2020, providing a core segment of Trump’s base [10]; scholars point to issue alignment (abortion, judicial appointments, religious liberty) and institutional outreach as drivers for that loyalty [9] [11]. At the same time, reporting has documented small shifts and internal diversity — not all evangelicals voted the same way, and some evangelicals actively opposed Trump or supported Democratic alternatives — but the dominant pattern in 2020 was clear majoritarian support for Trump among white evangelicals [12] [13].
5. Bottom line with caveats
The most defensible single-line answer is that about 80 percent of white evangelical voters backed Donald Trump in 2020, with a plausible range across reputable sources from roughly 75 percent (some exit polls) up to the low- to mid-80s (validated surveys and Pew analyses); which exact number to quote depends on which survey methodology one privileges [1] [2] [3].