Pew survey finds dip in Catholic support for Trump agenda

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Support for President Donald Trump’s agenda has dipped across Catholic and Protestant groups, even among groups where he still enjoys strong support overall, such as among white evangelicals, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center.

Gregory A. Smith, a senior associate director of research at Pew Research Center, and one of the authors of the study, told OSV News that “white evangelicals continue to be among Donald Trump’s strongest supporters.”

“However, compared with a year ago, compared with the very earliest days of his second term, white evangelicals are a bit less positive now, and that reflects a broader trend, a broader pattern,” he said. “That’s true when we look at findings for the public as a whole and for a variety of other religious groups as well.”

The study found that 69 percent of white evangelicals said they approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, while 58 percent of the same group said they support all or most of his plans and policies. Those numbers mark a much higher share of support for Trump among this group than U.S. adults overall, among whom 37 percent said they approve of Trump’s job performance overall, and 27 percent said they support “all/most ofTrump’s plans and policies.”

However, Pew also found that there has been an 8-percentage point drop since early 2025 in the share of white evangelicals who support all or most of Trump’s plans and policies, and there has been a 15-point drop in the share of those who said they are confident Trump acts ethically in office.

Among Catholics, the survey found 46 percent of white Catholics said they support all or most of Trump’s policies, down from 51 percent who said the same in February 2025. Among Hispanic Catholics, just 18 percent said they support all or most of Trump’s policies, down from 20 percent the previous year.

The percentage of white Catholics who said they are “extremely/very confident” that Donald Trump acts ethically in office, dipped to 34 percent in January 2026, down from 39 percent in February 2025. Among Hispanic Catholics, that number dropped from 22 percent to 14 percent over the course of the year.

Regarding how Trump is handling his job as president overall, his support among white Catholics dropped from 59 percent in February 2025 to 52 percent in January 2026, while his approval among Hispanic Catholics dropped from 31 percent to 23 percent over the same time frame.

“So you can see that big gap there in the views of white Catholics and Hispanic Catholics, with white Catholics being more supportive of the president. That’s typical with what we see in a lot of surveys,” Smith said, explaining why the survey separated them for its analysis.

Pew’s 2025 profile of Hispanic Catholics in the U.S. shows that they constitute 36 percent of all Catholic adults, and they constitute the most youthful demographic of the Catholic Church while also being the most impacted by the immigrant experience.

Pew’s profile noted that eight in 10 Hispanic Catholics were born outside the U.S. (58 percent) or are the children of immigrants (22 percent), and were more likely to politically identify as Democrat or lean that way. Whereas most white Catholics — 54 percent of the Catholic population — were born in the U.S., and more likely to identify as Republican or lean Republican.

Pew also found that Hispanic Catholics are overall a lot younger than white Catholics, with 59 percent being under 50, whereas only 29 percent of white Catholics were under 50.

Both groups had similar rates of Mass attendance, according to Pew, but Hispanic Catholics were less likely to receive the Eucharist every time at Mass. It noted Hispanic Catholics were more likely than white Catholics to engage in a variety of devotional practices and emphasize the importance of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Regarding the most recent survey, Smith noted Black Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, which includes those who describe themselves as atheist or agnostic, “or just nothing in particular when it comes to religion,” tend to be “among the least supportive of Donald Trump.”

“The way to think about Catholics, especially white Catholics, is that white Catholics are kind of in the middle between white evangelicals on one end who tend to be more supportive of Donald Trump, but white Catholics are more supportive of Donald Trump than Hispanic Catholics, and also compared to Black Protestants and people who have no religion,” he said.

The trend of a dip in support is similar across religious groups even with higher or lower support for the president overall, Smith said, adding that that change has taken place over the course of the year, rather than recently or rapidly.

“For a bunch of groups, Donald Trump’s approval rating is lower today than it was at the very beginning of his term, but it’s not much lower than it has been over the course of the year,” he said.

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