Then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference at the Washington Hilton on June 24, 2023, in Washington, D.C. Trump spoke on a range of topics to an audience of conservative evangelical Christians. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Roughly one in three Americans are Christian nationalists or sympathetic to the cause, according to a new survey.

The survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, also found strong connections between support for Christian nationalism and support for the Republican Party and President Donald Trump in particular.

“I think the threat is (to) our democracy,” said Public Religion Research Institute CEO Melissa Deckman. “We found consistently that Christian nationalists tend to endorse more illiberal views in the sense that they’re more likely to embrace more authoritarian views, which can essentially be used to justify limiting access to the ballot for some people, or it can be used to use undemocratic means to stay in power.”

Most Christian nationalists want America to be a theocracy ruled explicitly by biblical principles, often interpreted through a fundamentalist lens. Many also think only Christians should be able to hold political office.

While the vast majority of Americans do not support Christian nationalist ideals, the survey found that about 11% of Americans are active Christian nationalists while another 21% are sympathizers. Researchers categorized most Americans – 64% – as either skeptics or rejecters of Christian nationalism.

“Long story short, far more Americans reject it than endorse it,” Deckman said in an interview. “But politically, why it’s so important to measure is that we now have a political party where you have prominent Christian nationalists in charge right within the Republican Party, whether it’s in the Trump administration, and, the executive branch, that really have disproportionate influence and folks like the speaker of the House is someone that would endorse this currently in Congress.”

Public Religion Research Institute survey finds strongest support for Christian nationalist views in people from the South

The findings were based on interviews with more than 22,000 adults conducted throughout 2025. 

The survey found that 56% of Republicans are adherents or supporters of Christian nationalism, compared to a quarter of independents and 17% of Democrats. It also found a correlation between support for Trump and support for Christian nationalism. Backers of the ideology were far more likely to express support for political violence than their fellow Americans.

The states that held the most Christian nationalist views are concentrated in the South. Arkansas, Mississippi, West Virginia and Oklahoma registered the highest support for the ideology. But ruby red Idaho has become a center for Christian nationalist thought, as the home of influential pastor Doug Wilson’s, whose Christ Church and connected national education and church networks have helped shape a generation of far-right leaders. Wilson has called for America to be run as an explicitly Christian nation.

 One Idaho pastor calls for faith leaders across the U.S. to push back

Idaho-based pastor and writer Ben Cremer said that school of thought should worry Americans.

“Every American would have their lives dictated by the set of beliefs by a single Christian sect, whether they aligned with those beliefs or not,” he said. “Given the patriarchy, supremacy, and racism intertwined with the current brand of Christian nationalism, you would see women losing the right to vote and ethnic and religious minorities sidelined and infringed upon.”

Cremer said it’s incumbent on faith leaders to push back on what he sees as a perversion of Christianity.

“First, Jesus called us to love our neighbors as our selves – that is part of his greatest commandment to us,” he said. “My neighbor is every human being. Christian nationalism is actively harming and dehumanizing so many of my neighbors and our planet. That is simply unacceptable. Secondly, it is carrying this harm out in the name of my sacred faith.”

Christian nationalism, until recently a fringe ideology, has been in the spotlight in recent years, as Donald Trump has become receptive to the movement’s ideas and even appointed some Christian nationalists to prominent positions. 

Trump’s Defense secretary nominee has close ties to Idaho Christian nationalists

For example, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a member of one of Christ Church’s affiliates, sports Crusader tattoos and has broken down the separation of church and state in the military. Russ Vought, one of the architects of Project 2025 – a Christian nationalist blueprint for government – is Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director.

Deckman said if Americans want to see Christian nationalism banished to the fringes again, demographics are on their side.

“I guess the answer is … voting,” she said. “I think that you know this is something that’s not going to change overnight, necessarily. You know, younger Americans are more secular, they’re less likely to be conservative Christians. I think it’s just a matter of people voting right and getting enough people who are willing to challenge these kinds of viewpoints within the Republican Party.”

Correction: This story was updated at 9:45 a.m. Feb. 17, 2026, to correct the percentage of Americans who sympathize with Christian nationalist ideals. It’s 21%.