Daniel Cox, research director at the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), said Friday that half of Republicans view increasing diversity in the U.S. more negatively than they do positively.

"Most Americans say this is a positive development, but Republicans are more likely to say it's a negative development than a positive development," Cox told Hill.TV's Jamal Simmons on "What America's Thinking."

"I think it's really in the era of Trump that we're seeing this articulated in a way that we haven't before," he continued, referring to a PRRI poll released last month.

The poll asked respondents about U.S. census projections, which found that by 2043, racial and ethnic minorities will make up a majority of the U.S. population.

Half of Republicans polled by PRRI said they thought the impact of increasing diversity in the U.S. was "mostly negative," while 43 percent said they thought it was "mostly positive." Overall, 64 percent of Americans polled said they viewed the demographic changes as "mostly positive," versus 31 percent who said it was "mostly negative."