What demographic changes in Trump’s 2024 coalition reduced the share coming from white Protestants?
Executive summary
Donald Trump’s 2024 coalition included a smaller share of white Protestants—43% of his voters were white Protestants (29% white evangelical, 15% white nonevangelical), down from larger shares in 2020 and 2016—largely because his coalition grew more racially and religiously diverse rather than because white Protestants defected en masse [1]. The decline in share reflects gains among nonwhite Protestants, Catholics and other groups, plus turnout dynamics that brought more nonwhite and younger voters into the Republican column in 2024 [1] [2] [3].
1. The headline: fewer white Protestants as a share, not necessarily fewer votes
Pew’s detailed profile shows white Protestants composed a smaller slice of Trump’s 2024 voters—43% total with 29% white evangelical and 15% white nonevangelical—confirming a drop from 2020 and 2016 levels [1]. But this was not the result of a collapse of evangelical support: white evangelical Protestants still backed Trump overwhelmingly (about 81% for Trump in 2024), and white nonevangelical Protestants voted for him at near-identical rates to 2020, meaning the falling share reflects growth elsewhere in his coalition rather than mass departures among core white Protestant groups [4].
2. Growth of nonwhite Protestants inside the GOP coalition
Pew documents a notable rise in Protestants of races or ethnicities other than white or Black within Trump’s voters—from 5% in 2020 to 9% in 2024—an expansion driven largely by Hispanic and Asian Protestants who swung or turned out for Trump at higher rates than in prior cycles [1] [5]. This demographic shift is important because it increases the denominator of the coalition with nonwhite Christian voters, thereby reducing the proportional share coming from white Protestants even as white Protestant turnout and support remained high [4] [3].
3. Catholic and Hispanic gains shifted the religious mix
Multiple surveys and exit-poll analyses show Trump improved his standing among Catholic voters—exit polling indicated Catholics broke for Trump in 2024 by notable margins compared with 2020—and Trump’s gains with Hispanic voters included both Catholics and Protestants, further diversifying his faith coalition away from a purely white Protestant base [6] [3] [7]. Religious analyses from PRRI and reporting from Religion News note that Trump’s better performance with Hispanic and nonwhite Christian groups expanded his coalition’s racial and religious composition [3] [5].
4. Turnout and cohort effects: newer, more diverse voters boosted Trump’s share while white Protestants aged
Pew emphasizes turnout dynamics: Trump benefited from higher turnout among 2020 Trump voters and among people who had not voted in 2020—groups that were “considerably more diverse” than repeat voters—so the incoming voters made the overall coalition less dominated by white Protestants [2]. At the same time, white evangelical Protestantism skews older, a structural cohort reality noted by Brookings, which makes the relative share of older white Protestants decline as younger, more diverse voters enter the electorate [8].
5. Competing interpretations and limits of the data
There are two ways to read these changes: one, that Trump built a more racially and religiously diverse coalition that diluted the share of white Protestants (Pew, PRRI reporting) [1] [3]; two, skeptics warn this may be a transient electoral configuration rather than a durable realignment—Brookings and subsequent analysts caution that durable GOP gains among minority and younger voters would need to be much larger to constitute a long-term transformation [9] [10]. Available public analyses show the mechanics (turnout, gains among Hispanics and nonwhite Protestants, Catholic shifts) but do not prove permanence; the data describe who showed up and voted in 2024, not the causal long-term allegiance of these groups beyond the election [2] [9].