An overwhelming majority of people who voted for President Trump two years ago still have “warm” feelings for him, according to a survey released Thursday.
The study by Pew Research Center found that 82 percent of verified Trump voters said they felt “warmly” toward him in March of this year, with 62 percent saying they had “very warm” feelings about him.
The study asked Trump voters to rate the president on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from zero to 100. A rating of 51 or higher was “warm,” with 76 or higher showing “very warm” feelings about the president.
The survey divided Trump voters into four groups: enthusiasts, who had warm feelings for Mr. Trump before the election and this year; converts, who didn’t like Mr. Trump when they voted for him but warmed to him over time; skeptics, who were cold toward Mr. Trump before the election and haven’t changed their minds; and disillusioned Trump voters, who were initially warm toward him before the election but have since turned cold or neutral about him.
Enthusiasts comprise the largest share of Trump voters in the survey, at 59 percent. The next-largest share is converts, at 23 percent; followed by skeptics at 12 percent. Only 6 percent of Trump voters report being disillusioned with him.
The latest polling by Democracy Corps, a Democratic firm, showed last week that Mr. Trump’s core base of evangelical voters and tea-party members are more enthusiastic about Mr. Trump than ever. But that survey found that about half of Mr. Trump’s supporters in the GOP, including millennials and college-educated women, are turned off by his rhetoric and are less likely to vote for his endorsed candidates in the mid-term elections.
The Pew survey found that Protestants voted for Mr. Trump over Hillary Clinton by a margin of 56 percent to 39 percent. Catholics were more evenly divided, with 52 percent voting for Mr. Trump and 44 percent for Mrs. Clinton.
White evangelical Protestants, who constituted one out of every five voters in 2016, supported Mr. Trump by a margin of 77 percent to 16 percent.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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