North Carolinians have more affinity for Christian nationalism than the national average, but less than residents of other Southeastern states, according to a new report. In a recently released survey, the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found a strong correlation between Christian nationalist ideology — the concept that the United States belongs to and exists for the benefit of Christians — and party affiliation and geographical location.
In the Southeast, North Carolina is tied with Tennessee for the second-lowest share of people who believe in or sympathize with Christian nationalism at 36 percent. Only Virginia (30 percent) is lower in the region. The national average is 32 percent.
The PRRI survey found the highest levels of support for Christian nationalism in red states, primarily in the south and central portion of the country, like Arkansas (54 percent), Mississippi (52 percent), West Virginia (51 percent), Oklahoma (49 percent) and Wyoming (46 percent).
On the other hand, the states with the lowest shares of Christian nationalism adherents and sympathizers are blue and mostly coastal: California (22 percent), New Jersey (22 percent), New York (21 percent), Washington (18 percent) and Massachusetts (15 percent).
In North Carolina and most other swing states, roughly a third of residents say they’re adherents or sympathizers: 34 percent in Pennsylvania, 33 percent in Michigan, 32 percent in Wisconsin, and 30 percent in Arizona. However, Georgia has the highest percentage of supporters of any swing state (42 percent), while Nevada has the lowest (25 percent).
Jason Bivins, a professor for U.S. religion and politics at North Carolina State University, said the survey serves as confirmation in a sense.
“It’s a reflection of the way things have been going electorally,” he said.
While the report analyzed the state level, there wasn’t a distinction between urban and rural areas.
Large urban centers are what sets North Carolina apart from some of the other states in the Southeast, Bivins said, with cities like Charlotte, Greensboro and the Research Triangle area.
“That’s where we see a lot of the weaker emphasis on Christian nationalism, as compared to states like Arkansas and Mississippi,” he explained.
Looking at party affiliation, a majority of Republicans qualify as either Christian nationalism adherents (21 percent) or sympathizers (35 percent), compared with a fourth of independents (seven percent adherents and 18 percent sympathizers) and less than a fifth of Democrats (five percent adherents and 12 percent sympathizers), according to the poll.
The report found a high correlation between favorable views of President Donald Trump and Christian nationalism at the state level. States like Arkansas and Mississippi have 53 percent and 50 percent support for Trump respectively, while in Massachusetts and Washington, Trump has only around 30 percent support, according to the survey.
About 39 percent of North Carolinians show favorable views towards Trump, placing the state around the middle nationally.
The research also found correlations between Christian nationalism and Republican representation in state legislatures. In Arkansas and Oklahoma, which fall on the higher end of the Christian nationalism scale, Republicans hold 82 percent and 80 percent of their respective legislative seats, while Massachusetts, which has a low affinity for Christian nationalism, has Republicans representing only 15 percent of its state legislature.
In North Carolina, about 59 percent of the state legislature’s seats are held by Republicans. That’s about average compared to the rest of the country.
PRRI conducted the survey from Feb. 28 to Dec. 8, 2025 from a sample of 22,111 adults. There is a margin of error of plus-or-minus 0.87 percentage points.
This article appears courtesy of our media partner NC Newsline via Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.