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White evangelical voters stayed with Republicans in Tuesday's midterm elections, even as much of the country moved toward Democrats and handed them control of the House and Senate.
The Fox News Voter Poll found that 82 percent of white evangelical or born-again Christians backed Republican House candidates, compared with the 79 percent who backed President Donald Trump in Fox's 2024 voter analysis. Exit polling showed the group's support unchanged at 82 percent from two years ago. Catholics and voters with no religion swung toward Democrats. This group barely moved.
There was a warning sign for Republicans, too. White evangelicals made up 17 percent of the midterm electorate, down from 21 percent in Fox's 2024 survey and 23 percent in the NBC News exit poll.
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These voters have stuck with Republicans through three Trump campaigns and a midterm without him on the ballot. They also look like a smaller slice of who turned out.
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Two scholars of religion and politics told Newsweek the loyalty runs deeper than Trump, and both expect it to outlast him. They gave different reasons for it.
White evangelicals stayed because "the current policies of the Republican party align well with the views of white evangelicals," said Ryan Burge, a professor of practice at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis.
Andrew Whitehead, a professor of sociology at Indiana University Indianapolis and a research fellow for the Kettering Foundation, credited "decades of work by the political and religious right to bind this group to the GOP." White evangelicals, he said, "view voting for Republicans as their only 'Christian' option."
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How Did Evangelicals Vote in 2026?
In the Fox News Voter Poll, white evangelical or born-again Christians favored Republican House candidates 82 percent to 16 percent, a 66-point gap. All other voters favored Democrats 63 percent to 35 percent.
Two years ago, Fox's voter analysis had Trump winning white evangelicals 79 percent to 20 percent over Democrat Kamala Harris. Harris won all other voters 56 percent to 42 percent.
Other religious groups moved more. Catholics, who backed Trump 55 percent to 44 percent in Fox's 2024 survey, split almost evenly this year, 50 percent for Democrats and 49 percent for Republicans. Voters with no religion went from 68 percent for Harris to 78 percent for Democrats.
Protestants and other Christians, a broader category that includes evangelicals, barely shifted, giving Republicans 60 percent this year after giving Trump 61 percent.
Preelection polling had the number lower. In a Pew Research Center survey released in October, 73 percent of white evangelical Protestant registered voters said they would back the Republican House candidate in their district, and 12 percent preferred the Democrat.
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Core Trump Base Through Every Election
White evangelicals have been the steadiest part of Trump's coalition since his first run, though the exact number depends on the survey.
Exit polls in 2016 showed about 80 percent of white evangelicals backing Trump, a figure Pew Research Center later put at 77 percent in its analysis of validated voters.
Four years later, the surveys split. Exit polls had him at 76 percent, AP VoteCast at 81 percent and Pew's validated voter study at 84 percent.
The 2024 range was tighter: 79 percent in Fox's voter analysis, 81 percent in Pew data and 82 percent in exit polls.
Republicans were winning these voters well before Trump. By Pew's analyses of exit polling, John McCain won 73 percent of white evangelicals in 2008, while George W. Bush in 2004 and Mitt Romney in 2012 each won 79 percent.
"White evangelicals have been voting for Republicans in huge numbers for decades now," Burge said, calling Trump "just a continuation of that support."
Whitehead also placed Trump in that longer line, saying he made "overt promises" to white evangelicals like "many Republican candidates and presidents before him."
"The primary goal of Christian nationalism is access to political power and Trump has long promised this to white evangelicals and delivered on that promise," Whitehead said.
Daniel Schatz, a political scientist and author, said: “His Supreme Court appointments helped deliver the reversal of Roe v. Wade, giving evangelical conservatives evidence that their support produced a historic victory.”
White evangelicals make up about 13 percent of U.S. adults but nearly one-third of Trump's winning 2024 coalition, Reuters reported, citing surveys from the Public Religion Research Institute and Pew.
What White Evangelicals Care About
For Burge, the explanation starts with issues.
"White evangelicals favor deportation of illegal immigrants and strong restrictions on immigrant visas. They also oppose abortion and the LGBTQ movement," he said. "They favor lower taxes and less government regulation. And white evangelicals support capital punishment. Their values align with the values of the current Republican party."
Pocketbook concerns mattered, too. In Pew polling before the election, 81 percent of white evangelical Protestant registered voters said the economy was very important to their vote, close to Catholics at 87 percent and white mainline Protestants at 83 percent.
Whitehead sees a larger stake beneath those issues. He pointed to Christian nationalism, which he described as "the desire to fuse together a particular expression of Christianity with American civic life."
Schatz said that many white evangelical voters remain tied to the Republican Party by issues that go beyond their satisfaction with the president, including abortion, judicial appointments and the role of Christianity in public life.
"They see Republicans as defending those commitments and Democrats as threatening them," he said.
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Trump's Approval Slipped With Evangelicals
The midterm vote held up even as Trump's own standing with these voters fell.
Pew found that his approval among white evangelical Protestants dropped from 78 percent in January 2025 to 58 percent in its September and October survey. They were still the only religious group in which more people approved than disapproved of his job performance.
Reuters/Ipsos polling showed a similar decline, from 77 percent in January 2025 to 63 percent in October. Over the same period, his support among all respondents fell from 47 percent to 31 percent.
Yet, none of that sent them to Democrats. Whitehead said there is "no empirical evidence of this segment of the voting public ever moving away from the GOP, no matter what."
Fox News' poll and NBC's exit poll found that white evangelicals made up 17 percent of voters this year.
The broader Christian share of the electorate also declined. Protestants and other Christians fell from 43 percent to 40 percent in Fox's surveys, while voters with no religious affiliation grew from 23 percent to 27 percent.
Midterm electorates typically look different from presidential ones, which may explain part of the drop.
What Comes After Trump
The open question for Republicans is whether this support belongs to the party or to Trump.
Tuesday's numbers lean toward the party. Trump was not on the ballot, and white evangelicals still backed Republican House candidates at about the rate they backed him in 2024.
“Economic frustration can weaken enthusiasm without making the other party an acceptable alternative,” Schatz said.
A future nominee, whether Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio or someone else, would start from a weaker position. Republicans lost ground with Catholics and other groups this year, and they lean harder now on a bloc that made up a smaller share of voters.
Asked whether Vance or Rubio could keep that level of support, Burge said: "Almost certainly they can because the white evangelical vote is a Republican vote."
"Whoever the GOP nominates for the presidency in 2028 will receive massive support from white evangelicals," he said.
Whitehead agreed, saying: "Yes, I believe post-Trump Republicans can and will keep this level of support."
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Dave Siminoff.
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