A voter walks toward his polling place in Cary, N.C., during his state's primary election March 3, 2026, to choose candidates for the November midterm elections. (OSV News/Reuters/Jonathan Drake)
by Brian Fraga
Staff Reporter
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Fewer than one-third of Catholic voters in the United States have a favorable opinion of President Donald Trump, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
Released less than a month before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, the survey indicates that Trump's approval rating among all Catholics has dropped from 47% at the beginning of his second term to 30% in October 2026.
Among Hispanic Catholics, Trump's approval rating dropped from 31% to 18%, and among white Catholics from 59% to 39% over the same period.
In the 2024 presidential election, Trump won a majority of Catholic voters, taking 55% of the Catholic vote to Vice President Kamala Harris' 43%, according to a previous Pew survey. Four years earlier, Catholics split almost evenly: 50% voted for Joe Biden and 49% for Trump in the 2020 election.
Since the beginning of his second term, Trump's approval rating has dropped significantly among all U.S. adults. That downward trend is evident in every religious group, according to Pew.
Even among white evangelical Protestants, who comprise an important part of Trump's political base, the president's approval rating has fallen 20 percentage points, from 78% to 58%. White evangelicals represent the only religious group where a majority still views Trump favorably.
"Even religious groups who have traditionally been his strongest supporters see him less favorably than they used to," Gregory A. Smith, a senior associate director of research at Pew Research Center, wrote in an analysis of the data.
The survey also indicated that 67% of Catholics overall disapprove of Trump's handling of his job as president. Broken down by demographics, the survey found that 59% of white Catholics and 78% of Hispanic Catholics disapprove of Trump's job performance.
Conducted Sept. 28-Oct. 4, the survey also found that registered voters are more likely to support Democratic candidates than Republicans across most religious groups. Voter dissatisfaction with the economy appears to be increasing Democrats' chances of taking control of Congress.
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However, Pew also found that white Catholics and Hispanic Catholics differ sharply in who they will vote for in the midterms.
Among white Catholics, which as a cohort skews more conservative than Hispanic or Black Catholics, 50% said they would vote for the Republican candidate while 32% said they would support the Democrat, with another 18% unsure.
Among Hispanic Catholics, 59% said they would vote for the Democrat, 19% for the Republican candidate, and 21% were unsure.
Among all Catholics, the survey found 42% said that if the election were held today, they would vote for the Democrat in their House district while 39% would support the Republican. Another 19% said they were unsure or would select another party's candidate.
Among white nonevangelical protestants, the voters are split more closely, with 45% supporting Republican candidates and 37% supporting Democrats.
The survey indicates that there is far more support for Democrats than Republicans among Black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, atheists, agnostics and those who describe their religion as "nothing in particular."
