How Would Americans React to Trump in Jail?

After former President Donald Trump was warned of potential jail time, The Washington Post’s Aaron Blakequestioned how Americans might respond to Trump being jailed for violating the gag order in his Manhattan criminal trial. A recentCNN poll found that Americans said Trump’s conduct in this trial had been “mostly inappropriate” rather than “mostly appropriate” by a 17-point margin (42% to 25%). Additionally, even before this trial, most Americans have viewed Trump’s conduct negatively. In a previous American Values Survey, PRRI found as many as six in ten Americans said that Trump’s conduct made them less likely to support him.

Transgender Bathroom Bills Are Back, Gaining Traction After Past Boycotts

At NPR, Deena Prichep reports that, in recent years, bills to ban transgender people from using public bathrooms according to their gender identity have resurfaced in Republican-led states, a sharp contrast from the widespread public opposition and boycotts similar bills faced in 2016. Proponents of such bills gained public support by shifting voters’ attention to banning transgender athletes from women’s sports and targeting states unlikely to be impacted by boycotts. PRRI research finds that a majority of Americans today favor laws that require transgender individuals to use bathrooms that correspond to their sex at birth rather than their current gender identity (54% favor, 40% oppose).

Abortion Is Set to Be a Key Election Issue. Which Side Has Momentum?

Sean Boynton at Global News writesthat as abortion solidifies as a key issue in the upcoming presidential election, activists in favor of restoring access seem to have the upper hand as those working to restrict it struggle to find a cohesive message. In both Florida and Arizona, where abortion legality will appear on the ballot, the campaigns to provide a constitutional right to abortion are outpacing their opposition by millions of dollars. PRRI finds that majorities of nearly all religious groups, and majorities in all but five states, support abortion access, which has stayed consistent for the past decade.

How Trumpism Has Pushed a Fringe Charismatic Theology Into the Mainstream

At Religion News Service, Matthew D. Taylor and PRRI Affiliated Scholar Paul A. Djupe describe the growing influence of the once-fringe NAR movement (The New Apostolic Reformation) on American evangelical communities. Based on their January 2024 survey of 1,500 self-identified Christians, Taylor and Djupe find that the majority of self-identified evangelicals agree with NAR beliefs. Noting that NAR leaders have populated Trump’s evangelical advisory boards and were central to organizing Christian participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, they conclude that “what not long ago seemed to be a marginal set of beliefs has become a dominant religious framework among American Christians.”