The overwhelming majority of Americans say Muslims face discrimination, a new survey has revealed.

According to Pew Research, 82 per cent of Americans believe Muslims face discrimination, and 57 per cent say they face "a lot" of discrimination.

However, these views do very quite significantly between Republicans and Democrats.

Forty per cent of Republicans said Muslims faced a lot of discrimination, compared to 69 per cent of Democrats.

Meanwhile, 21 per cent of Republicans believe evangelical Christians face a lot of discrimination, while just nine per cent of Democrats hold this view.

Republican President-Elect Donald Trump courted the evangelical vote during his rise to power in part by playing to the "persecuted Christian" narrative.

In August, three months before his election, he told a crowd of 700 evangelical pastors and their spouses that Christians had been "silenced like a child" in America.

He promised evangelicals that he would "never let you down" and made abortion and the appointment of conservative Supreme Court justices a key tenet of his campaign.

Trump was also accused of promoting Islamophobia, especially after pledging to suspend the immigration of Muslims to America.

He called last December for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States".

He appears to have since backed down on this vow, but an increase in anti-Muslim hate crime has been reported in the US since his election victory.

Pew surveyed 1,502 adults between November 30 and December 5 , just a few weeks after Trump's win.

The results showed that 89 per cent of Democrats and Democratic leaners said Muslims faced a lot or some discrimination in society today, while 89 per cent and 88 per cent said the same of black people and gay people respectively.

These figures were lower for Republicans and Republican leaners, 73 per cent of whom said Muslims faced a lot or some discrimination. The figure stood at 61 per cent for discrimination against black people, and 64 per cent for gays and lesbians.