A Roman Catholic priest protesting abortion prays during a sit-in opposing funding for Planned Parenthood in Washington, D.C., in 2015. According to the study, nearly 3-in-4 Republicans, 73 percent, identify as white Christians — and nearly half of them identify as white evangelical Christians. | Win McNamee/Getty Images Study: Political parties transformed by racial, religious changes

Americans who identify as white Christians now make up a minority of the country, according to a new study that illustrates how seismic shifts in the nation’s racial and religious identities have altered the composition of the two political parties significantly.

Only 43 percent of Americans now identify as white Christians, and only 3-in-10 are white Protestants, the new Public Religion Research Institute study shows. Forty years ago, about 81 percent of Americans identified as white Christians, and 55 percent as white Protestants.


These radical changes are the results of two concurrent trends: the increasing diversity and decreasing religiosity of the country. But while the nation is changing rapidly, the two major political parties are not changing at the same pace.

A decade ago, 50 percent of Americans who identified as Democrats said they were white Christians. But now that’s down to just 29 percent. And more than a quarter of Democrats, 26 percent, say they are religiously unaffiliated — up from only 9 percent in 2006.

Contrast that with the Republican Party: Nearly 3-in-4 Republicans, 73 percent, identify as white Christians — and nearly half of them identify as white evangelical Christians. Overall, 35 percent of Republicans are white evangelicals, roughly the same as in 2006, when the share was 37 percent.

“The Democratic Party has changed more dramatically than the Republican Party has,” said Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute. “What we see, basically, is one party kind of maintaining its homogeneity, while the other party is following the shifts in the greater population.”

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These changes are — overwhelmingly — coming from younger Americans. Nearly half of Democrats aged 65 or older identify as white Christians, but only 14 percent of Democrats between the ages of 18 and 29 say they are white Christians. Four-in-10 young Democrats are religiously unaffiliated.

Younger Republicans are also less likely to be white Christians: Fifty-seven percent of those 18-to-29 identify as such, versus 84 percent of Republican seniors.

The GOP continues to depend on white evangelicals, the study shows. Roughly half, 49 percent, of all white evangelicals identify as Republicans, compared with only 14 percent who say they are Democrats. Mormons also lean heavily Republican: Forty-four percent are Republicans, versus 12 percent who are Democrats.

African-American Protestants, on the other hand, tilt heavily Democratic: Sixty-eight percent say they are Democrats, and just 4 percent are Republicans. Hispanic Catholics are also a Democratic stronghold: Forty percent are Democrats, compared with just 9 percent who are Republicans.

Jewish Americans (47 percent to 20 percent), Hindus (36 percent to 9 percent) and Muslims (46 percent to 6 percent) all lean significantly more Democratic than Republicans.

Among the 24 percent of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated, a third identify as Democrats, while only 11 percent are Republicans. The remaining majority identify as independent or declined to provide a political party.

(Among these unaffiliated Americans, only 27 percent are agnostic or atheist. Fifty-eight percent identify as secular, or someone who is not religious. The remaining 16 percent say they are religious but that they don’t follow a particular faith.)

Religiously unaffiliated individuals make up a plurality of residents in 20 states, the study shows — mostly in the West and Northeast. By contrast, white evangelicals are a plurality in 13, mostly Southern states. Catholics are the plurality in 11 states.

The PRRI study was conducted via telephone polling from Jan. 6 through Jan. 10. At least 1,000 interviews were conducted each week, and a total of 101,438 adults participated in the study. The margin of error for the sample, including design effect, is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.

Even as white Christians shrink as a share of the overall population, Republicans have dominated the political scene for much of the past eight years. The GOP now controls the White House, both chambers in Congress, nearly three-quarters of the nation’s governorships and the majority of state legislatures.

How have Republicans done it, even as demographic trends tilt against them? It’s because their voters show up, Jones says.

“The ballot box functions a bit like a time machine,” he said. “Because whites — and white Christians in particular — vote more than other Americans, the population at the ballot box has not caught up to the population of the country yet.”

The post-2012 autopsy proffered by the Republican National Committee acknowledged the party's need to expand beyond its electoral base, and suggested ways the GOP could better appeal to a younger, more diverse electorate.

But now-President Donald Trump largely threw out that playbook in his 2016 campaign, mostly tailoring his message to those groups that are dwindling as an overall share of the population. That worked last year, but Jones says this study should sound alarm bells for Republicans that it isn’t a sound long-term strategy.

“They’ve been able — just by higher rates of turnout — to give the illusion that their pool of voters isn’t shrinking,” Jones said. “At some point, that thread breaks.”