White evangelicals among groups with slipping confidence in Trump’s handling of COVID-19

White evangelical Protestants are President Donald Trump’s most supportive religious constituency, but they are slightly less positive about his response to the coronavirus pandemic now than they were in March. The decline comes as recommendations for social distancing in the United States stretch into a third month and Americans overall express waning confidence in how the president and public health officials are handling the crisis.

A new Fact Tank analysis, based on a survey conducted April 29-May 5, also finds that at least half of Americans in each major Christian tradition – including 51% of white evangelicals – say that their bigger concern is that state governments will lift coronavirus-related restrictions too quickly, rather than not quickly enough. And most white evangelicals say that they favor either holding steady (43%) or increasing (15%) restrictions on public activity in their area.

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