Exciting New PRRI Research Report Out Today
How many Christian nationalists are in your state? How much have things changed, or stayed the same?
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) just released a new report on Christian nationalism. It provides a distinct advancement to all we know, particularly through the sheer size of the data collection. Using their always elite American Values Atlas as a vehicle through which they could collect ongoing data throughout 2023 (w/ interviews w/ over 22,00 adults), they are able to show us all some exciting new findings.1 You can also view a webinar where I share some insights alongside Robert Jones, Jemar Tisby, and Katherine Stewart.
I’ll first share some of the new developments. After, though, I’d like to highlight just how well these findings fit within the growing Christian nationalism research canon, reaching back to my 2020 book with Sam Perry, Taking America Back for God. The consistency in findings in survey after survey from the early 2000s until now, even with shifts in how we measure Christian nationalism, underscores how this is a real concept with real-world implications. But first, the findings…
Where is Christian nationalism?
In the report PRRI is able to provide proportions of each state’s population who are either adherents or sympathizers of Christian nationalism. They can do this because of the size of the sample. If you have too small of a sample size, you can’t with any real confidence estimate to a geographic area. So in Taking America Back for God, we included a map but had to break it up by region of the country—we just didn’t have enough people in each state to safely estimate.
But now—NO MORE! We can see the the mid and central parts of the Midwest, down into and through the South toward the coast, and then back up in the eastern portion of the Midwest are where the highest concentrations of Americans who embrace Christian nationalism live.
PRRI even provides this same map but looks specifically at white Americans, finding more distinct differences but with the same overall pattern.
About 3 in 10 Americans is either an Adherent to or Sympathetic to Christian nationalism.
This finding aligns with PRRI’s 2023 Christian nationalism survey. This means that over the last 1-2 years we’ve had consistency in group sizes. That’s notable. In other surveys I or others have conducted we do see a slight decline in the size of Adherents or Ambassadors of Christian nationalism—those who strongly embrace it (see
’s great post on this here).In both the 2023 survey and in the American Values Atlas data collection, PRRI uses a somewhat unique battery of questions modeled off of prior work, including my own, but with a refined focus on privileging Christianity.
I’m a fan of any and all refinement techniques. In fact, after the 2017 data collection that mirrored questions asked in 2007, and we used both surveys for Taking America Back for God, Sam and I began shifting and changing how we measured Christian nationalism. That, my friends, is how science works!
Other data collections using variations on the Christian nationalism scale continue to deliver similar proportions. For me, that’s notable. We can pretty confidently state what PRRI shows us here—about 3 in 10 Americans are at least sympathetic to Christian nationalism.
Look to the Battleground States
Given the nature of our electoral process—namely, the electoral college—it really doesn’t matter who wins the most votes. In fact, since 2000, there have been 3 Republican administrations, and only 1 won the popular vote and the electoral college. Each of the Democratic administrations were able to win both.
So, it really matters where the Republican and Democratic candidates for president win, particularly for Republican candidates.
In this figure, PRRI includes North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada as battleground states. In the appendix PRRI lists the proportions of each state that are adherents or sympathizers with Christian nationalism: North Carolina and Georgia fall just above the national average (30%). Pennsylvania is right at the national average while Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada are just below the national average.
In 2016, Trump won because of 80,000 people spread across 3 battleground states. We know Christian nationalism is strongly correlated with Trump support. So folks who embrace Christian nationalism are particularly important in these battleground states.
Consistency in What Christian Nationalism is All About
Here’s where we get into all that has stayed the same over the last decade or so of survey research into Christian nationalism. What PRRI’s new report shows, alongside their 2023 report, including Pew Research Center’s work in this area, various other folks gathering data and writing manuscripts, is that Christian nationalism—even with shifts in how it is measured—is still strongly associated with views and attitudes that Sam Perry and I outlined in Taking America Back for God back in 2020, using data from 2017.
Looking just at this newest report, TABfG and our early research also shows Christian nationalism is strongly associated with:
-Support for Trump
-White evangelical Protestantism
-Comfort with authoritarian social control and a desire for a strongman
-Comfort and even support for political violence in order to bring the country back on track
-Devotion to the 2nd amendment
-Desire to limit or end immigration, turn away refugees
-Opposition to LGBT civil rights
-Opposition to abortion, for pretty much any reason
What does this consistency mean?
There is a clear and empirically supported definition and understanding of what Christian nationalism is and the implications of it for American civic life.
And here it is, in bold for those in the back:
Christian nationalism is a cultural framework—a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems—that idealizes and advocates a fusion of a particular expression of Christianity with American civic life.
It holds that this version of Christianity should be the principal and undisputed cultural framework in the United States and that the government should vigorously preserve that cultural framework.
While the particular expression of Christianity referenced in Christian nationalism does refer to theological or orthodox beliefs, it includes four elements that underscore the threat it poses to a pluralistic, democratic society.
A desire for a society organized according to traditionalist social arrangements. The ideal society is one where men lead and women support, marriage is ideally heterosexual, and families with a mom and dad are committed to procreation. American citizens and families that represent these ideals will have the easiest access to civil rights and liberties. Those who do not embrace these ideals will consequently be denied easy access.
A comfort with authoritarian social control. The world is a viewed as a chaotic place and we need strong leaders who through the threat of violence, or actual violence, defend the preferred social arrangements and hierarchies.
A desire for strong ethno-racial boundaries around national identity, civic participation, and social belonging. The ideal American is generally understood to be a natural-born Anglo Protestant. It is this group who created the United States, and it is this group who should remain central to its cultural identity and political leadership.
A populist impulse that creates space for Americans to embrace feelings of victimization—that certain “elites” are trying to persecute them—which lends itself to adopting more conspiratorial thinking. One example of this is thinking Christians in America are being silenced or persecuted.
So when folks want to know what Christian nationalism is—the above is the empirically supported definition.
PRRI’s new report and the recent headlines around Christian nationalism being a central aspect of one party’s administration should they win in 2024 should encourage each of us, and our communities, to learn more and commit to building a pluralistic, democratic society where all Americans—regardless of race, religion, or creed—are given the opportunity to flourish.
Webinar on New PRRI Christian Nationalism Report
For those interested, PRRI organized a webinar to discuss the report. I was excited to participate, and as I shared above it included Robert Jones,
, and Katherine Stewart. Here’s the link!Be sure to follow President and Founder Robert P. Jones at
White Too Long by Robert P. Jones and sign up for PRRI’s newsletters.