Is President Donald Trump losing support from evangelical Christians?
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That’s what current polls would lead us to believe, as The Pew Research Center recently released a survey that was conducted among 1,503 U.S. adults from Nov. 28 through Dec. 4, and the results are certainly thought-provoking.
Trump’s job approval rating has declined among key groups that gave him a great deal of support back in February.
While the majority of white evangelical Protestants (61 percent) still give him high ratings, that proportion is down from 78 percent earlier this year. White mainline Protestants are down from 49 percent to 46 percent and Catholics have decreased in their approval from 36 percent to 26 percent over the past 10 months.
Similar declines were seem among Americans aged 50 and older (47 percent in February versus 38 percent now) and white Americans, who declined from 49 percent to 41 percent in their approval of Trump’s job performance.
You can read the full Pew results here.
As Faithwire previously reported, a separate report from Public Religion Research Institute titled, “One Nation, Divided, Under Trump: Findings from the 2017 American Values Survey,” found that, despite past support for Trump, views among white evangelicals aren’t quite as homogeneous as some might expect.
As it turns out, more white evangelicals are weak Trump supporters (42 percent) than are strong (30 percent).
Those who are weak supporters say that it is still possible for them to stop supporting the president, while strong supporters say, in contrast, that there is “almost nothing President Trump could do to lose” their support, The Christian Post noted.
Meanwhile, 11 percent are weak Trump opponents, while 13 percent are strong opponents of the president.
White evangelicals with weak opposition believe Trump could change, while those with a strong opposition can’t imagine the president winning their approval, according to PRRI.
It’s unclear how these proportions will be impacted by Trump’s policy decisions, particularly his decision to name Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — a move that elated many evangelicals.