Is COVID-19 Changing Evangelical Support for Trump?
Robert P. Jones, CEO and Founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and a leading scholar and commentator on religion, culture, and politics, speaks with Rev. Jim Wallis on the importance of polling in the presidential election season and the impact of COVID-19 on the perceptions of people of faith.
Jones says, "We've been able to see really as the pandemic has progressed and as Trump has shifted his responses is that he reached a peak of support in March. Now for Trump, peak support is actually just under 50 percent - 49 percent . But that was the highest favorability rating we had ever recorded for President Trump...but we saw this really remarkable drop across groups."
PRRI reports, "Currently, two-thirds (66 percent) of white evangelical Protestants, nearly half (48 percent) of white Catholics, and 44 percent of white mainline Protestants hold a favorable view of Trump, a significant decline from their March 2020 ratings (77 percent, 60 percent, and 62 percent, respectively)."