Majority of white Christians, Hispanic Protestants backed Trump in 2024: poll

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Thursday, January 02, 2025

A new survey reveals that most white Christians and Hispanic Protestants supported President-elect Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election as discussions continue about the influence of voters’ religious beliefs on their political affiliation.

The Public Religion Research Institute released a report examining the results of the 2024 presidential election broken down by religious affiliation. The report is based on responses collected from 5,772 adults and a subsample of 4,757 adults who voted in the 2024 presidential election between Nov. 8 and Dec. 2. The respective samples have margins of error of +/-1.7 percentage points and +/-1.9 percentage points. 

Trump, the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election, received his strongest level of support among white Evangelicals, measured at 85%. Just 14% of white Evangelicals backed Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. 

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Trump received an even higher share of the vote among white Evangelicals who go to church once a week or more (88%). His support was lower among white Evangelicals who attend church either monthly or a few times a year (81%), as well as those who seldom or never go to church (74%). 

Trump also received the support of a majority of Hispanic Protestants (64%), white Catholics (59%), and white, non-Evangelical Protestants (57%). As was the case with white Evangelicals, a higher church attendance rate among white Catholics correlated with a higher level of support for Trump. 

A supermajority (64%) of white Catholics who go to church at least once a week backed Trump, along with smaller majorities of white Catholics who attend monthly or a few times a year (58%) and those who rarely or never go to Mass (56%). However, the opposite pattern emerged among white non-Evangelical Protestants.

Only a bare majority (52%) of white non-Evangelical Protestants who go to church weekly supported Trump. Slightly larger shares of white, non-Evangelical Protestants who attend church monthly or a few times a year (56%) and never or rarely attend church (59%) backed the president-elect. 

Trump came up short among Hispanic Catholics, 55% of whom supported Harris. The overwhelming majority of voters belonging to all other religious demographics backed Harris over Trump. 

Harris’ support was strongest among black Protestants. The vice president captured 83% of the vote among this demographic. Harris also received majority support from the religiously unaffiliated (72%), non-Christian voters adhering to a religion other than Judaism (67%) and Jewish voters (62%). 

The results of the Public Religion Research Institute survey differ slightly from exit polling of the 2024 presidential election compiled based on interviews with 22,914 voters as they left their polling stations on Election Day. The exit polling found Trump’s support among white Evangelicals at a slightly lower 82% while pegging his support among Latino Protestants at a higher share (64%). 

While the Public Religion Research Institute survey found that Trump lost Hispanic Catholics, the exit polling determined that the president-elect actually received a majority of the vote (53%) from this demographic. Harris’ support among black Protestants in the exit polling (85%) was identical to the finding of the Public Religion Research Institute. 

Polling conducted following the 2024 presidential election has revealed a massive shift in the voting preferences of Latinos compared to the 2020 presidential election. While the Public Religion Research Institute found that Harris received a majority (53%) of the Latino vote and exit polling measured Harris’ support among the demographic at 51%, both numbers represent a decline from the 65% of the Latino vote captured by President Joe Biden in 2020, according to exit polling.

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, predicted that Latino voters would abandon the Democratic Party “in droves” in a 2022 interview with The Christian Post.

Rodriguez characterized the Democratic Party as “a new progressive, socialist, anti-right, anti-Christian” party that “completely ignores the rights of individuals and the idea that we are created in the image of God, with God-ordained rights.” He insisted that “Latinos are not going to stand for that because we are a people of faith.”