NEW YORK — About 7 in 10 white evangelical Protestants approve of President Donald Trump’s handling of his job, according to a new survey — support from a cornerstone of his political base that has remained strong following a polarizing church visit and a Supreme Court ruling on LGBT discrimination that disheartened some conservatives.
Trump’s 72% approval among white evangelicals in June, released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, represents a fall of six percentage points since a similar April survey. But it also comes as his campaign steps up its appeals to religious voters ahead of November’s election, and after Trump faced criticism from two faith leaders in the wake of his June 1 photo op at St. John’s Church near the White House, for which protesters were forcibly cleared from a nearby park.
The survey also was conducted after a Supreme Court decision last month that shielded LGBT people from employment discrimination, a ruling that dismayed religious conservatives and saw Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch side with more liberal justices. The survey’s findings about Trump’s white evangelical approval are in line with a fall in his general approval among all Americans, which declined from 44% in April to 39% in June.
Despite the tick downward, Trump’s approval among white evangelicals has remained largely consistent over his presidency, like his approval rating overall.