Newsmax: The number of white Americans who identified as evangelical Christians grew during former President Donald Trump’s administration, according to the Pew Research Center.
Contrary to a belief among some people that Trump would cause an exodus from the church, new Pew Research Center survey data finds that there has been no large-scale departure from evangelicalism among white Americans.
Instead, there was solid evidence that white Americans who viewed Trump favorably and did not identify as evangelicals in 2016 were much more likely than white Trump skeptics to begin identifying as born-again or evangelical Protestants by 2020.
A total of 25% of white Americans identified themselves as born-again or evangelical Protestants in 2016. Four years later, 29% of them described themselves that way, according to Pew.
Pew found that 16% of white Americans who did not identify as evangelical in 2016 but expressed a warm view of Trump went on to identify themselves as evangelical in 2020.
Among self-identified white evangelical voters, 60% supported Trump in both 2016 and 2020, and 18% of them voted for Trump in 2020 after not doing so four years earlier.
Only 9% of white evangelical voters defected from Trump between 2016-20.
Among non-white respondents who participated in both the 2016 and 2020 surveys, 26% identified as born-again/evangelical Protestants in 2016, and 25% identified this way in 2020.