Gregory A. Smith

Associate Director, Research

Gregory A. Smith is associate director of research at Pew Research Center. He helps to coordinate the Center’s domestic polling on religion. Smith also writes reports and provides information to news media and others about religion and public opinion, religion and American politics, and the political views of Catholics. Smith holds a doctorate in government from the University of Virginia, where he was a fellow at the Center on Religion and Democracy. He is an author of the 2007 and 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Studies, the 2010 U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, the 2007 and 2011 Pew Research Center surveys of Muslim Americans, the 2012 Mormons in America report and the 2012 report “Nones” on the Rise. He also wrote Politics in the Parish: The Political Influence of Catholic Priests (Georgetown University Press, 2008). Smith has been interviewed as an analyst by a variety of broadcast media, including ABC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC and NPR, and by The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today, among other print media.

Publications

Pew Research CenterMay 6, 2019

While U.S. Jews have a strong attachment to Israel, they are divided in their assessment of Trump’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

White evangelicals consistently give President Trump high marks

Pew Research CenterMarch 18, 2019

Roughly seven-in-ten white evangelical Protestants approve of Trump's presidential job performance. Other religious groups are more divided.

Catholic Democrats, Republicans at odds on border wall

Pew Research CenterJanuary 24, 2019

On a number of issues, Catholic partisans often express opinions more in line with their political parties' positions than with their church's teachings.

ReligionNovember 7, 2018

White evangelical or born-again Christians backed GOP candidates for the House at about the same rate in 2014. Religious "nones" and Jewish voters again largely backed Democratic candidates.

ReligionOctober 10, 2018

American Catholics are racially and ethnically diverse and fairly evenly dispersed throughout the country. Many want to see the church make significant changes.

On religious attendance, prayer and importance of religion, nonwhite Democrats are more similar to GOP than to white Democrats

Pew Research CenterMay 23, 2018

While white Democrats are less likely to be religious than Republicans, nonwhite Democrats more closely resemble Republicans overall on certain religious measures.

Pew Research CenterApril 23, 2018

Nearly eight-in-ten black Americans identify as Christian, compared with 70% of whites, 77% of Latinos and just 34% of Asian Americans.

ReligionMarch 1, 2018

The Rev. Billy Graham, who recently died at age 99, was one of the most influential and important evangelical Christian leaders of the 20th century. As the country remembers Rev. Billy Graham, here are five facts about American evangelical Protestants.

ReligionNovember 27, 2017

Most Christians in America say that whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by their sex at birth. Yet, many religious "nones" have different views.

Growing share say belief in God is not necessary to have good values, be moral

ReligionOctober 16, 2017

Most U.S. adults now say it is not necessary to believe in God to be moral and have good values, up from about half who expressed this view in 2011.

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Gregory A. Smith

Research Areas

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