A majority of Americans who attend religious services weekly or more qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers
WASHINGTON (February 4, 2025)— In the wake of the election of Donald Trump with the strong support of white evangelical and other white Christians, a new nonpartisan national survey released today by PRRI examines support for Christian nationalism across all 50 states. Based on interviews with more than 22,000 adults as part of the PRRI American Values Atlas, the new study examines the connections between support for Christian nationalism and voting for Trump, support for political violence, church attendance, partisanship, media habits, and more.
At the national level, Christian nationalism is strongly linked to Republican Party affiliation, white evangelical Protestant affiliation, and frequent church attendance.
Overall, three in ten Americans qualified as Christian nationalism Adherents (10%) or Sympathizers (20%), compared with two-thirds who qualify as Skeptics (37%) or Rejecters (29%). These percentages have remained stable since PRRI first asked these questions in late 2022. A majority of Republicans qualify as either Christian nationalism Adherents (20%) or Sympathizers (33%), compared to less than one-quarter of independents (6% Adherents and 16% Sympathizers) and less than one-fifth of Democrats (5% Adherents and 11% Sympathizers).
“At the dawn of a second Trump administration, the threat white Christian nationalism poses to the promise of multiracial, multifaith democracy are plainer than ever,” says Robert P. Jones, president and founder of PRRI. “This survey illustrates how this dangerous political theology is driving support for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement and how thoroughly it has established itself as an ideological keystone in both the Republican Party and American evangelical churches.”
White evangelical Protestants (65%) and Hispanic Protestants (57%) are the only two major religious groups in which a majority qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers. While support for Christian nationalism has remained stable among almost all religious groups, support for Christian nationalism among Hispanic Protestants has grown 14 percentage points from 2022, when PRRI first asked these questions.
Support for Christian nationalism is positively correlated with higher church attendance. A majority of those who attend religious services weekly or more qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers (51%), compared with 39% of those who attend at least a few times a year and 18% of those who seldom or never attend services. A majority of white Americans who attend religious services weekly (54%) qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers, compared with 46% of Black Americans and 47% of Hispanic Americans.
At the state level, Christian nationalism is strongly linked to red states and 2024 vote for Trump.
The states with the highest levels of support for Christian nationalism are Mississippi (51%), Oklahoma (51%), Louisiana (50%), Arkansas (49%), West Virginia (48%), and North Dakota (46%). At the state level, support for Christian nationalism is strongly correlated with voting for Donald Trump in the 2024 election. If the analysis is restricted to white Americans, the relationship between state-level support for Christian nationalism and a 2024 vote for Trump is nearly perfectly correlated.
Christian nationalists are more likely than other Americans to view Trump’s election as ordained by God and to support political violence.
Two-thirds of Christian nationalism Adherents (67%) and nearly half (48%) of Sympathizers agree that God ordained Trump to be the winner of the presidential election, compared to just 20% of Skeptics and 4% of Rejecters. Nearly four in ten Christian nationalism Adherents (38%) and nearly three in ten Sympathizers (28%) agree that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country,” compared with only 15% of Skeptics and 7% of Rejecters.
Christian nationalists also hold conspiratorial and racist views about immigrants and subscribe to patriarchal beliefs.
Strong majorities of Christian nationalism Adherents (68%) and Sympathizers (62%) believe that immigrants are “invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background,” compared with 34% of Skeptics and 9% of Rejecters. Christian nationalism Adherents (69%) and Sympathizers (58%) are significantly more likely than Skeptics (34%) and Rejecters (12%) to agree that immigrants entering the country illegally today are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
More than seven in ten Christian nationalism Adherents (72%) and 63% of Sympathizers agree that society as a whole has become “too soft and feminine,” compared with 46% of Skeptics and 18% of Rejecters. While about one-third of Americans (35%) agree with the statement “society is better off when men and women stick to the jobs and tasks they are naturally suited for,” majorities of both Christian nationalism Adherents (61%) and Sympathizers (54%) agree.
Among the other findings:
- Two-thirds of Americans who most trust far-right TV news sources (such as NewsMax or One America News Network) qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents (26%) or Sympathizers (40%), as do a majority (52%) of those who most trust Fox news.
- Half of Christian nationalist Adherents (50%) and one-third of Sympathizers (32%) endorse QAnon beliefs, compared with 19% of Americans nationally.
Methodology
The survey was designed and conducted by PRRI. The survey was made possible through the generous support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Foundation to Promote Open Society, the Arcus Foundation, the Gill Foundation, the Wilbur & Hilda Glenn Family Foundation, and the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock. The survey was carried out among a random representative sample of 22,260 adults (age 18 and up) living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in the United States. Among those, 20,642 are part of Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel and an additional 1,618 were recruited by Ipsos using opt-in survey panels to increase the sample sizes in smaller states. Interviews were conducted online between March 13 and December 2, 2024. The margin of error for the national survey is +/- 0.84 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence, including the design effect for the survey of 1.62. In addition to sampling error, surveys may also be subject to error or bias due to question wording, context, and order effects.
About PRRI
PRRI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy.
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