Partisan and Racial Sorting of Christian Nationalism, 1996–2022: Backlash and Counter Backlash on the (White) Secular Left and Religious Right

ABSTRACT Christian nationalism scholarship and discourse has surged in the years since Trump's 2016 election victory, even as, by most measures, adherence to Christian nationalist beliefs has declined. Applying scholarship on political backlash, I propose that this apparent discrepancy may be explained both by ideological trends antithetical to public religion among Democrats and politicization of religious identity among Republicans, leading to partisan divergence. Given evidence of the racialization of the culture wars, I expect these trends to be most pronounced among whites. I test these prospects by examining the partisan sorting of Christian nationalism from 1996 to 2022. I find evidence of a minor increase among Republicans and sharp declines among Democrats from 2014 onward, concentrated among whites. Based on these findings, I argue that increased attention to Christian nationalism reflects shifts in the content of symbolic conflicts among white partisans rather than any meaningful change in population‐level prevalence or influence.