The U.S. electorate continues to be sharply divided along religious lines.
The latest Pew Research Center survey finds that most registered voters who are White Christians would vote for Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Joe Biden if the 2024 presidential election were held today. More than half of White Christians think Trump was a “great” or “good” president and don’t think he broke the law in an effort to change the outcome of the 2020 election.
In stark contrast, most registered voters who are Black Protestants or religious “nones” – those who self-identify as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” – would vote for Biden over Trump. Large numbers in these groups also say Trump was a “terrible” president and that he broke the law trying to overturn the 2020 election results.
Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to highlight religious differences in U.S. voters’ views about the 2024 presidential election. For this analysis, we surveyed 8,709 adults – including 7,166 registered voters – from April 8 to 14, 2024. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.
Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and the survey methodology. Here are details about sample sizes and margins of error for groups analyzed in this report.
Religion and the 2024 presidential election
While most White Christian voters say they would vote for Trump over Biden if the election were held today, there are some differences by religious tradition. Trump draws support from:
- 81% of White evangelical Protestant voters
- 61% of White Catholics
- 57% of White Protestants who are not evangelical
By contrast, 77% of Black Protestant voters say they would vote for Biden over Trump. Most religious “nones” also say this, including:
- 87% of atheist voters
- 82% of agnostics
- 57% of those whose religion is “nothing in particular”
These presidential preferences reflect the partisan leanings of U.S. religious groups. White Christians have been trending in a Republican direction for quite some time, while Black Protestants and religious “nones” have long been strongly Democratic.
The Center’s new survey includes responses from Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and people from many other religious backgrounds, as well as adherents of smaller Christian groups like Hispanic Protestants and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (widely known as Mormons). However, the survey does not include enough respondents from these smaller religious categories to be able to report on them separately.
Church attendance and voting preferences in 2024
Among Christians, support for Trump is somewhat higher among regular church attenders than non-churchgoers. Overall, 62% of Christian voters who say they go to church at least once or twice a month support Trump over Biden. Among Christians who go to church less often, 55% would vote for Trump if the election were today.
Among White evangelical Protestant voters, 84% of regular churchgoers say they would vote for Trump, compared with 77% of White evangelicals who don’t go to church regularly.
White nonevangelical Protestants are the only Christian group in which support for Trump is significantly stronger among nonattenders than among regular churchgoers.
Voters’ views of Biden and Trump as presidents
About three-quarters of White evangelical Protestant voters say Trump was a “great” (37%) or “good” (37%) president. Roughly half of White Catholics and White nonevangelical Protestants share this view.
When it comes to Biden, atheists and Black Protestants rate the current president’s performance most favorably. Roughly half of voters in each of these groups say Biden is a great or good president.
Overall, Trump gets higher marks on these questions than Biden. This is because Trump supporters are more inclined to say he was a great or good president than Biden supporters are to say the same about him.
Views of whether Trump broke the law in effort to change 2020 election outcome
People in the religious groups that are most supportive of Biden tend to think Trump broke the law in an effort to change the outcome of the 2020 election. Most atheists (83%) say this, as do 70% of Black Protestants and 63% of agnostics.
By contrast, just 16% of White evangelical Protestants say Trump broke the law trying to change the 2020 election outcome. Another 15% of White evangelicals say they think Trump did something wrong but did not break the law, while the largest share by far (47%) say Trump did nothing wrong.
Note: Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and the survey methodology.
