Breaking Research: 50-State Survey Finds Majority of Republicans Qualify as Christian Nationalism Supporters
New analysis shows strong correlation between support for Christian nationalism and Republican representation in state legislatures.
WASHINGTON (February 17, 2026) — One year into the second Trump administration, a new national survey released today by PRRI examines support for Christian nationalism across all 50 states. At the national level, a majority of Republicans (56%) qualify as either Christian nationalism Adherents (21%) or Sympathizers (35%), compared with one in four independents (25%) and less than one in five Democrats (17%).
Based on interviews with more than 22,000 adults conducted throughout 2025, the PRRI American Values Atlas finds that white Christians (46%) are more likely than Christians of color (39%), non-Christians (13%), and religiously unaffiliated Americans (10%) to qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers. White evangelical Protestants (67%) and Hispanic Protestants (54%) are the only two major religious groups in which a majority qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers.
“For another year, our survey reveals the continued hold that Christian nationalism has on the Republican Party and its white evangelical base,” said Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., president and founder of PRRI. “While Americans overall reject this worldview by a margin of two to one, its dominance among these groups amplify it into an ongoing threat to our pluralistic democracy.”
Support for Christian nationalism is positively correlated with frequent religious behaviors: The majority of Americans who attend religious services weekly or more qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers (54%), compared with 39% of those who attend at least a few times a year and 20% of those who seldom or never attend religious services. This correlation holds among those who pray outside of religious services and those who read religious texts. Among Christians who attend religious services weekly or more, 56% qualify as Christian nationalism supporters.
Christian nationalism supporters hold more extreme views about immigrants. Majorities of Christian nationalism Adherents (67%) and Sympathizers (53%) agree with the idea that “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background,” compared with 32% of Skeptics and 8% of Rejecters. Additionally, majorities of Christian nationalism Adherents (61%) and Sympathizers (54%) support “the U.S. government deporting undocumented immigrants to foreign prisons without due process.” In contrast, around one-third of Skeptics (34%) and one in ten Rejecters (11%) agree.
Melissa Deckman, Ph.D., CEO of PRRI, said, “Our new analysis demonstrates a strong relationship between the spread of Christian nationalist ideology and Republican representation in state legislatures, indicating which states are conditioned to pass policies endorsed by major Christian nationalist leaders.”
At the state level, Christian nationalist views predominate in the South and Midwest and are strongly correlated to both Trump favorability and Republican representation in state legislatures.
The states with the highest levels of support for Christian nationalism —about half of their residents — are Arkansas (54%), Mississippi (52%), West Virginia (51%), Oklahoma (49%), and Wyoming (46%). The higher a state’s residents score on the Christian nationalism scale, the more likely they are to hold favorable views of Trump and have a larger proportion of Republican elected officials in their state legislature.
Other notable findings:
Christian nationalism Adherents (30%) are more than twice as likely to agree that “true American Patriots may have to resort to violence” than Christian nationalism Skeptics (14%) and Rejecters (11%).
Two-thirds of Americans who most trust far-right news sources qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents (34%) or Sympathizers (31%), as do a majority of those who most trust Fox News (18% Adherents and 37% Sympathizers).
Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers overwhelmingly view Trump as a strong leader, while Skeptics and Rejecters overwhelmingly view him as a dangerous dictator.
Join us for a webinar this afternoon to hear a panel of experts discuss the report’s findings:
Was there a specific question about "those who read religious texts" as opposed to those who attend church services.
My area of interest is those who read the Bible every day. My theory is that there may be more potential to move people toward the center among those who read the Bible daily. That is what has driven my substack writing for the last two years...