Poll: The Rapid Decline of US Evangelicals

PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute), released the details of a major census of religion in the US on July 8th. There is a great deal of detail contained within it. This is perhaps to be expected because it has been based upon interviews conducted with more than 500,000 respondents between 2013 and 2020. Here I’m I’m going to focus down upon one demographic — the evangelicals.

Key Highlight — Steep Evangelical Decline

As recently as 2006, white evangelicals were 23% of the US population. This new poll reveals that they have dropped by an astonishing amount and are down to just 14% in 2020.

Let me spell that out.

Just 15 years ago almost 10% of the entire US population, that’s roughly 33 million evangelicals, have today walked away from that specific religious brand.

Here is a chart that illustrates this …

Since 2006, white evangelical Protestants have experienced the most precipitous drop in affiliation, shrinking from 23% of Americans in 2006 to 14% in 2020. That proportion has generally held steady since 2017 (15% in 2017, 2018, and 2019).