Donald Trump's evangelical support plunges 17 points in 10 months

Donald Trump's evangelical support has plunged 17 points in the last 10 months despite him delivering on a number of campaign promises aimed at pleasing his core base.

The drop is one of the sharpest decline of any group but despite this, white evangelicals remain the President's strongest supporters. In February 78 per cent of white evangelicals approved of Trump's job performance but now it's just 61 per cent, according to the latest survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center

Evangelical Christian leaders lay hands and pray over Donald Trump at the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, during the election campaign.Reuters

But at 61 per cent white evangelicals remain the voter bloc most likely to approve of the US President, only topped by Republicans themselves.

It comes in the wake of several Trump decisions, such as recognising Jerusalem as capital of Israel and appointing a conservative judge to the Supreme Court, designed to please his evangelical supporters.

The figures were based on interviews of 1,503 adults conducted between November 29 and December 4 and is compared with similar data from February.

It shows that while Trump's support from his own voters has dropped significantly, it remains roughly in line with his predecessors at the same stage. However where Trump's ratings plummet is among his opponents. In Barack Obama's first year in office his support from Republicans dropped from 37 per cent to 18 per cent. But that is more than double Trump's approval among Democrats which stands at 7 per cent.

Another poll earlier this month found nearly a third of white evangelical said there was 'almost nothing President Trump could do to lose my approval'. However the same poll found one in three voters overall disapproved of Trump so strongly they said 'there is almost nothing he can do to win their support'.