Hispanic Catholics are overwhelmingly more likely to vote for Hillary Clinton in the US election, unlike white Catholics who are evenly divided between the two main candidates, a survey by the Pew Research Centre has found.

Democrat nominee Clinton currently holds a 17-point advantage among Catholic registered voters, driven largely by support in the Latino community. Fifty-six per cent of American Catholics registered to vote say they would vote for Clinton if the election were held today; 39 per cent for Republican Donald Trump. Those numbers are bolstered by the seventy seven per cent of Hispanic Catholics planning to vote for the Democratic Party.

The Catholic contingent joins a growing number of registered voters in the US who describe themselves as ‘atheist’, ‘agnostic’ or ‘nothing in particular’, who also back Clinton.

The Republican candidate has come under fire during the campaign for inflammatory remarks about ethnic minorities, including comments early in his campaign in which he compared Mexican immigrants to rapists and pledged to ban all Muslims from entering the US.

Perhaps surprisingly this doesn’t seem to have deterred Evangelicals, who make up one-fifth of all registered voters in the US. The phone survey with 2,245 Americans conducted by Pew last month showed a large proportion of Evangelical Christians – 78 per cent – planning to vote for Trump, including roughly a third who “strongly” back his campaign.

This is despite many evangelical leaders suggesting Trump’s policies are incompatible with their principles and beliefs. Yet while the statistics show a strong leaning towards the Republican candidate, the authors of the report say the data actually reveal that support for the Republican candidate is being driven, in part, by opposition to Clinton as much as confidence in Trump.

In fact, white evangelicals who say they would choose Trump mainly as a vote against Clinton outnumber those who say their choice is mainly one for Trump by a 45 per cent to 30 per cent margin.

Other interesting findings from the survey include statistics showing a declining share of Americans desire a president with firm religious convictions. Today, just 62 per cent of US adults say it is important to them that the president has strong religious beliefs.