1. Religion and the 2016 campaign

Religious contours of 2016 campaign mostly match 2012 For the most part, the voting intentions of people in major religious groups closely resemble those seen in polling conducted at a similar point in the 2012 campaign. Roughly eight-in-ten white evangelical Protestant voters (78%) say they would support Trump if the election were held today, just […]

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2. Religion in public life

Declining share says it is important for president to have strong religious beliefs The share of Americans who think it is important that a president have strong religious beliefs has been steadily declining over the past two election cycles and has reached a new low in Pew Research Center polling. In 2008, 72% said this […]

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Methodology

The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted June 15-26, 2016, among a national sample of 2,245 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (559 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone and 1,686 were interviewed on a cellphone, including 1,067 […]

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Acknowledgments

This report is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of the following individuals: Research Team Gregory A. Smith, Associate Director of Research Alan Cooperman, Director of Religion Research Jessica Hamar Martínez, Senior Researcher Besheer Mohamed, Senior Researcher Becka A. Alper, Research Associate Elizabeth Podrebarac Sciupac, Research Associate Claire Gecewicz, Research Assistant           Editorial […]

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Trends in Global Restrictions on Religion

Worldwide, both government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion decreased modestly from 2013 to 2014 despite a rise in religion-related terrorism, according to Pew Research Center’s latest annual study on global restrictions on religion.1 Of the 198 countries included in the study, 24% had high or very high levels of government restrictions in […]

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1. Number of countries with very high restrictions and hostilities went down in 2014

Countries with the most extensive government restrictions on religion Most countries in the world have some form of government restrictions on religion, but each year a few countries stand out as having particularly extensive restrictions. In 2014, 16 of the 198 countries included in the study had a “very high” level of government restrictions, down […]

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