Trump, Anti-Islam, and Evangelicals

Today is my debut at FiveThirtyEight, where Paul Djupe, Jake Neiheisel and I have a short piece titled: "Republicanism Trumps Religion When It Comes to Anti-Muslim Sentiment." We join the chorus and write about Donald Trump and his anti-Muslim statements, though focus on how his rhetoric might play with evangelical Christians. Analyzing data from four national surveys conducted in 2015, both before and after the attacks in Paris, we find that anti-Muslim sentiment on the right is primarily the product of partisanship, not religiosity. Moreover, results from survey experiments suggest that it will take fellow partisans (or fellow evangelicals) to counteract Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric. Liberal critiques only fuel polarization and anti-minority sentiment.