Washington — PRRI Survey Finds Evangelical Empathy Gap Widens

A new poll found that white evangelical Protestants are the only religious group surveyed in which a majority does not agree that empathy is a foundational moral value, according to the Public Religion Research Institute's 2026 American Values Survey, cited Tuesday in a live report from The Guardian.

PRRI, a nonpartisan research group, reported that just 42 percent of white evangelical Protestants surveyed agreed empathy is foundational to morality. Instead, a majority of that group — 54 percent, PRRI found — said empathy can be dangerous when it leads people away from a society guided by what the group's survey described as "God's truth." The figures appeared in a live political blog covering the run-up to the 3 November midterm elections, the Guardian reported, rather than in a standalone PRRI release reviewed independently by HTT News.

What did the survey measure?

The American Values Survey is an annual project PRRI has run for more than a decade, tracking how Americans across religious and political lines describe their moral priorities. The Guardian's account did not specify the sample size, margin of error, or fielding dates for the 2026 edition, and HTT News could not independently verify those methodological details. Those gaps matter: without a stated sample size or error margin, the precision of the 42 percent and 54 percent figures cannot be assessed beyond what PRRI itself reported.

How does the evangelical response compare with other groups?

The Guardian's summary described white evangelical Protestants as the outlier among the religious groups PRRI tracked — the only one where most respondents did not call empathy foundational to morality. The dispatch did not include comparable percentages for other denominations or for religiously unaffiliated respondents, so the size of the gap relative to other groups could not be quantified from the available material.

What explains the divide, according to PRRI?

PRRI's own framing, as relayed by the Guardian, tied the finding to a specific theological concern: that empathy, when untethered from religious conviction, can pull believers away from a society ordered around divine truth. That is PRRI's characterization of the survey response, not an independent researcher's causal explanation, and the live blog did not include a quote from a PRRI staffer or outside sociologist elaborating on the mechanism behind the split. The finding describes an attitude reported by respondents; it does not establish why that attitude has taken hold or whether it has shifted from prior years' surveys, since no trend data appeared in the cited material.

Why did this land during the midterm campaign?

The survey surfaced inside a running Guardian live blog otherwise dominated by campaign news: on the same day, Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office — flanked by YouTuber Nick Shirley, Mehmet Oz and Vice President JD Vance, per the Guardian — that he would have spent $400 million supporting Republican candidates by Election Day, November 3. Trump also announced an incentive program for reporting fraud following allegations raised by Shirley, the Guardian reported. The juxtaposition illustrates how religious-values polling and campaign-finance announcements are now surfacing in the same news cycle as voters weigh midterm choices, though the Guardian's reporting did not draw a direct causal line between the PRRI findings and any specific campaign messaging.

What to watch

• Whether PRRI releases full methodology, including sample size and margin of error, for the 2026 American Values Survey.
• Whether year-over-year trend data emerges showing if the evangelical empathy gap is widening or holding steady.
• Whether campaigns or commentators cite the PRRI findings directly in midterm messaging ahead of November 3.
• Whether other pollsters attempt to replicate the finding with independent survey instruments.

Glossary

PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute): A nonpartisan research organization that studies the intersection of religion, culture and public policy in the United States.

American Values Survey: PRRI's annual nationwide survey tracking Americans' self-reported moral and political priorities across religious and demographic groups.

White evangelical Protestants: A demographic and religious category used in U.S. survey research to describe white Americans who identify as Protestant and evangelical, distinct from Black Protestants, Catholics, and other faith traditions tracked separately in most national polling.

HTT News could not locate additional primary-source detail on the survey's methodology beyond what appeared in the Guardian's live coverage, and no second independent outlet's account of the PRRI findings was available for comparison at the time of publication.

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