New Poll: Amid Ongoing War in Iran, Trump Support Drops Among Independents and Republican Leaners – PRRI
PRRI Staff
This Spotlight Analysis uses new PRRI data collected from May 1 to May 18, 2026, to examine recent changes in President Donald Trump’s favorability ratings through the lenses of party, religious affiliation, church attendance, Christian nationalism, race, and age.[1]
Over a year into the second Trump administration, our latest data show that 34% of Americans hold favorable views of Donald Trump, down from 41% during the final days of the Biden administration in September 2024, while six in ten Americans view Trump unfavorably (62%).
Most Republicans (79%) continue to hold favorable views of Donald Trump, significantly down from September 2024, when 84% favored Trump. Among independents, 25% view Trump favorably, significantly down from 37% in September 2024. By contrast, just 5% of Democrats hold a favorable view of Trump; Trump’s favorability among Democrats has remained very low over the past decade.
When examining Trump’s favorability ratings by a 7-point party identification scale between 2024 and 2026, the sharpest decreases occur among independents and Republican-leaning voters. Among “strong Republicans,” Trump’s favorability remains high and stable, standing at around 91%. However, support among less committed Republicans has weakened significantly, with favorability among “not very strong Republicans” dropping 7 points, from 70% to 63%. “Republican leaners” declined 17 points, from 65% to 48%.
Significant declines were also evident among “true independents” (those who don’t lean toward either party), who experienced a 21-percentage point decrease, from 35% to 14%. Democrats of all leanings remained virtually unchanged in their view of Trump over the last two years.
Hispanic Christian groups have experienced the steepest decline in Trump favorability over the last two years, with both Hispanic Protestants (37%) and Hispanic Catholics (23%) showing a 14 percentage-point decrease. Non-Christians follow, at a 9 percentage-point decline from 27% in 2024. Favorability of Trump among all white Christians declined by 5 percentage points, while unaffiliated support of the president dropped by 4 points.
When looking more closely at over time changes, white Christians continue to be more likely than Christians of color and non-Christians to view Trump favorably. Today, two in three white evangelical Protestants (67%) view Trump favorably. While white evangelical Protestants remain the religious group most likely to view Trump favorably, their favorable views of Trump have declined significantly from 72%, right before the presidential election in September 2024, and from an all-time high of 76% in May 2025.
Similarly, a slight majority of white Catholics (51%) viewed Trump favorably in September 2024. Today, that number has dropped to 46%, with the majority of white Catholics (54%) holding unfavorable views. In addition, Trump’s favorability dropped 8 points among white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants from 53% in September 2024 to 45% in February 2026 before rising slightly but significantly to 48% in May 2026.
Click through the chart below (selecting white Christian, Christian of color, or non-Christian) to explore Trump favorability among different religious groups.
In comparison, Trump favorability remains much lower among Christians of color and religiously unaffiliated Americans. Hispanic Protestants have historically viewed Trump more favorably than their Catholic counterparts; after a sharp drop from an all-time high of 51% in September 2024 to 32% in March 2025, Hispanic Protestants’ favorability rebounded to 48% in September 2025 before declining again to 37% in May 2026.[2] Hispanic Catholics’ favorability towards Trump grew steadily from 12% in 2015 to a high of 37% in September 2024, before hovering around 25% throughout 2025 and 2026. Since 2015, Donald Trump’s favorability among Black Protestants has remained relatively stable, never reaching higher than 19%. Trump favorability among Black Protestants stands at 13% in May 2026.
Trump’s favorability among religiously unaffiliated Americans has fluctuated over the past decade, from a low of 17% in September 2016 to a high of 31% in October 2017. Between September 2024 and the first half of 2026, favorable views of Trump stabilized among this group, slightly going down from 25% to 21% in May 2026. Trump’s favorability among non-Christian Americans has fluctuated as well, rising from 16% in 2015 to 27% in September 2024 before falling to 18% in May 2026.
Today, 56% of white Christians who attend religious services weekly or more view Trump favorably, followed by 53% of those who attend monthly or yearly, and half of those who attend seldom or never. By contrast, Christians of color are notably less likely than white Christians to hold favorable views of Trump. Nearly three in ten Christians of color who attend monthly or yearly view him favorably (29%), followed by 23% of weekly attenders and 18% of those who seldom or never attend.
Americans who qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers are the most likely to support Trump (73% and 59%, respectively). In contrast, 31% of Christian nationalism Skeptics and just 7% of Christian nationalism Rejecters hold favorable views of Trump. Since September 2024, Trump favorability has gone up among Adherents and Sympathizers, from 67% and 55%, respectively, while it declined among Skeptics and Rejecters, from 37% and 16%, respectively.
Today, 44% of white Americans hold favorable views of Trump, compared with 23% of Hispanic Americans and 15% of Black Americans. While favorability has fluctuated across all groups, white Americans are the only group to show a constant increase since June 2023, rising from 36% to 44% in May 2026, with a slight but significant decline from 48% in September 2025. All racial groups showed a brief spike in favorable views of Trump in September 2024, just before the presidential election.
Trump’s favorability among Hispanic Americans was lowest in October 2015 (16%) before rising to 29% in October 2017 then falling to 20% the next year. By 2020, 30% of Hispanic Americans had a favorable view of Trump, a share that rose steadily to an all-time high of 39% in September of 2024. In September of 2025, favorability among Hispanic Americans returned to 30%. Since then, it has dropped to 23%, a level not seen since 2021.
Except for 2015 (16%), Black Americans have consistently held the lowest Trump favorability ratings. PRRI surveys show that Trump’s favorability among Black Americans hit its lowest levels in 2016 (7%) and 2020 (8%). The highest levels were recorded in September 2024 and March 2025, when 19% of Black Americans viewed Trump favorably.
Trump’s favorability ratings remain lower among younger Americans than older Americans. Among Americans ages 18-29, Trump favorability rose sharply from 19% in 2015 to 36% in October 2017 before falling to 21% in 2018. Favorability rose again to 35% in both September 2024 and March 2025, before falling to its current level of 24%. Among Americans ages 30-49, Trump favorability rose from 31% in 2015 to 38% in 2017, then fell to 31% in 2018 and remained in the low 30s until increasing to 39% in September 2024. Now, Trump favorability has returned to the low 30s, dropping significantly to 31% among Americans ages 30-49.
Among Americans ages 50-64, Trump’s favorability rose from 38% in 2015 to 45% in 2017, fell to 33% in June 2023, and then rebounded to 44% in September 2024. By May 2026, it fell slightly but significantly to 41%. Among senior Americans 65 and over, Trump’s favorability increased from 33% in 2015 to 49% in 2017, the highest level recorded for any age group, before fluctuating in the 30s and 40s in subsequent years. Favorability notably shot up from 30% in June 2023 to 46% by September 2024, and now stands at 44% among Americans 65 and over in May 2026.
[1] The survey was designed and conducted by PRRI. The survey was conducted among a representative sample of 5,469 adults (age 18 and up) living in all 50 states in the United States. Of those respondents, 5,140 were part of Ipsos’s Knowledge Panel and an additional 329 who were recruited by Ipsos using opt-in survey panels to increase the sample sizes in smaller states. Interviews were conducted online between May 1-18, 2026. The margin of error for the national survey is +/- 1.53 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence, including the design effect for the survey of 1.34. In addition to sampling error, surveys may also be subject to error or bias due to question wording, context, and order effects. Additional details about the KnowledgePanel can be found on the Ipsos website: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/solution/knowledgepanel
[2] The number of cases for Hispanic Protestants for 2015-2017, 2021-2022, and Aug. 2023 are too small to report.
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