72 % of white evangelical protestants support donald trump
Executive summary
A recent Pew Research Center snapshot found that 72% of White evangelical Protestants approve of how President Donald Trump is handling his job, a level that still places this religious group among his most reliable constituencies but represents a modest drop from earlier in his term [1]. That 72% figure measures job approval at a moment in time and sits alongside other measures—exit polls and AP reporting—that have recorded even larger evangelical backing for Trump in elections, underscoring how survey wording and timing produce different but consistent signals about strong evangelical alignment with Trump [2] [3].
1. What the 72% number actually represents: approval, not uniform voting behavior
The 72% statistic cited by Pew refers specifically to White evangelical Protestants who say they approve of how Trump is handling his job as president in a May 2025 survey — not a direct measure of vote intention or turnout — and Pew itself notes that this is down six points from an earlier reading (78% to 72%) [1]. Other outlets and polls have reported higher shares of evangelicals voting for Trump in particular elections — for example AP VoteCast and other exit-poll-based accounts have shown roughly eight-in-ten White evangelical voters backing Trump in past cycles — which illustrates the difference between approval ratings at a point in time and electoral support across different survey instruments [2] [3].
2. Why White evangelicals remain a core part of Trump’s coalition
Multiple analysts and institutions link the persistence of evangelical support to a mix of partisan identification and policy priorities: White evangelicals overwhelmingly identify with or lean Republican, and they place particularly high importance on issues such as immigration, judicial appointments and social issues that map onto Trump’s agenda and Republican messaging [1] [4]. Think-tank and media reporting also documents that many evangelicals endorse specific Trump administration policies — for instance opposition to DEI programs and backing for tariffs and budget cuts in some surveys — reinforcing the political alignment beyond personality or rhetoric alone [5].
3. Internal differences and leadership ambivalence inside evangelicalism
Despite the overall high figure, evangelicals are not monolithic: Pew, AP and other coverage point to variation by observance and subgroups, with regular churchgoers sometimes showing different levels of intensity and some evangelical leaders expressing ambivalence about Trump’s style or particular actions even while supporting many of his policy priorities [4] [6]. Reporting from CNN and PBS highlights examples where prominent evangelical figures varied in their reactions to presidential behavior and tactics, demonstrating that cultural, theological and generational cleavages exist within the label [6] [7].
4. How to read competing measures and why they matter
Survey design, timing and the exact question asked explain why Pew’s 72% job-approval figure can coexist with reports that 80% or more of White evangelicals voted for Trump in specific elections; approval polls capture sentiment at a moment, while exit polls and VoteCast measure discrete voting behavior and can reflect different samples and question framings [1] [3]. Analysts at Brookings and Pew emphasize that, across measures, the direction is consistent: White evangelical Protestants are a major, reliably Republican-aligned bloc whose political weight can be concentrated geographically and demographically even as the precise percentages fluctuate [8] [9].
5. Bottom line and reporting limits
The plain reading of the available reporting: yes, multiple reputable sources show strong evangelical support for Trump and Pew’s May 2025 figure places that approval at 72% of White evangelical Protestants — a clear expression of continued alignment even as it modestly declines from prior readings [1] [5]. Beyond that, differences across outlets and question types mean the number should be understood in context: approval vs. vote, subgroup variation, and evolving priorities all shape how that 72% translates into political power on the ground, and the provided sources do not offer a single, definitive metric that captures every dimension of evangelical political behavior [2] [4] [8].