Six in ten white evangelical Protestants agree “God ordained Donald Trump to be the winner of the 2024 presidential election,” followed by Hispanic Protestants
December 14, 2024 – WASHINGTON – A new PRRI survey of 4,757 voters explores the U.S. political and cultural landscape after the 2024 election, including the impact of partisanship, race, and religion on voters’ choices and their feelings about the election’s outcome.
In a webinar held on December 13, 2024, PRRI President and Founder Robert P. Jones, Ph.D. discussed the new survey findings with Christopher Parker, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science and Director of Graduate Studies at UC Santa Barbara; Efrén Pérez, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science and Psychology at UCLA; and CEO of PRRI, Melissa Deckman, Ph.D.
The survey report revealed deeply polarized views about the election outcome among partisans. “Republicans [are] overwhelmingly either excited or satisfied — although more satisfied than excited — about the reelection of Trump. It’s way down to single digits of positive emotions among Democrats,” said Robert P. Jones. He continued, “There’s no group in the country more worried or angry than African American voters.”
White evangelical Protestants continue to be the religious group with the strongest backing of Donald Trump, with 85% reporting that they voted for the President-elect. Majorities of both white Catholics (59%) and white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (57%) also report voting for Trump. In contrast, strong majorities of Black Protestant voters (83%) and unaffiliated voters (72%) report voting for Harris.
The Hispanic religious vote, however, was divided along Catholic and Protestant lines. Hispanic Catholic voters are more likely to report voting for Harris over Trump (55% v. 43%) while Hispanic Protestant voters are more likely to report voting for Trump over Harris (64% v. 36%). As Efrén Pérez, noted, these trends denote larger political changes among Hispanic Americans that have been decades in the making: “The Latino population itself is dramatically different from what it was in the eighties and even the nineties. The reality is that at this point in time it’s a native born conversation. Three out of five Latinos are born in the U.S. [and] they’re increasingly trying to figure out, where do I fit in this racial terrain and where do I fit in this partisan terrain?”
Younger voters, according to the survey, showed a greater propensity to vote Republican in this election than in recent years—particularly young men, as noted by Melissa Deckman: “Whereas Trump and Republicans have never garnered a majority of votes from young men in presidential races, a solid majority of young men voted for Donald Trump in 2024. It went up to 59% in our survey results.” When asked why Trump may have made inroads with younger Black male voters, Christopher Parker replied “One of the things that I found in my own survey work is that there’s a lot of misogyny involved […] you have misogyny and basically political ignorance that helped drive support for Trump.”
While few voters believe that God ordained Trump to be the winner of the election, belief in Trump’s divine endorsement is highest among white evangelical Protestants, Hispanic Protestants, and Americans who qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers.
Just one in four voters (25%) agree with the idea that “God ordained Donald Trump to be the winner of the 2024 presidential election.” White evangelical Protestants (60%) are the religious voters most likely to agree that Trump was divinely ordained to win, followed by Hispanic Protestants (45%). Voters who qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers (59%) are five times as likely as Christian nationalism Rejecters and Skeptics (11%) to agree that God ordained Trump to win.
Compared with 2016, partisan polarization has intensified, with partisans increasingly likely to view the opposing party as a serious threat.
Republican voters are more likely to see the Democratic Party as a serious threat to the country today than they did when Trump first ran for office (60% in 2016 vs. 69% in 2024); however, the perception among Democrats that the Republican Party poses a serious threat has increased at a much higher rate in that same time (50% in 2016 vs. 81% in 2024).
While roughly one-third of independent voters continue to say the Democratic Party poses a serious threat today compared with 2016, they show a significant increase in concern about the threat posed by the Republican Party, up from 26% in 2016 to 42% in 2024.
Confidence in free political expression in the wake of a new presidential administration is drawn along partisan and racial lines.
Only about four in ten American voters (42%) are very confident that Americans will be able to freely express their political opinions, even if they differ from the incoming presidential administration. Most Republican voters (72%) are very confident that Americans will be able to freely express their political opinions, compared with 38% of independent voters and 10% of Democratic voters. White voters (45%) are the most likely to express confidence in the ability to freely express political opinions, while Black voters (20%) are the least confident.
As the holidays approach, Democratic voters are significantly more likely than Republican and independent voters to say they will reduce time with family due to political differences.
Just 12% of American voters say they will be spending less time with certain family members because of their political views this holiday season. Democratic voters (23%) are nearly five times as likely as Republican voters (5%) to say they will be spending less time with certain family members because of their political views.
Methodology
The survey was designed and conducted by PRRI. The survey was conducted among a representative sample of 5,772 adults (age 18 and up) living in all 50 states in the United States, who are part of Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel. Interviews were conducted online between November 8 and December 2, 2024. The margin of error for the full sample is +/- 1.72 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence. Our analysis in this report is isolated to Americans who reported voting (N=4,757 cases). The margin of error for this subsample of voters is +/- 1.9 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence. 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 politics.
Source: PRRI
