Are US Latter-day Saints Patriotic in 2026?
Data from the May 2026 PRRI Survey
TLDR
US Mormons are among the most patriotic US religions (if not the most) and most likely to believe in American Exceptionalism.
Yet, Mormons are also becoming more divided politically (and are perhaps the most divided religion) on what the US should look like today.
Introduction
This weekend, the US will celebrate 250 years of independence and this past month PRRI released a report on Politics, Religion, and American Identity, so I wanted to talk through a few points on patriotism, the united states, and politics and how those things relate with Mormonism. In their sample of 5500 respondents, 99 of them were Latter-day Saints. I thought there were some interesting takeaways from this report and I wanted to share them with you here today.
Let’s jump right into it…
Charts
One of the most striking takeaways from this report was this data on American Exceptionalism.
When asked whether you agree that God has granted America a special role in human history, Latter-day Saints were the most likely religion to agree with this sentiment. A whopping 80% compared with only 44% of American overall and LDS even score higher than Evangelical Christians on this question. This is truly a question that divides America today and Latter-day Saints are on one end.
This high score isn’t terribly surprising since the LDS religion was restored/founded in the US (unlike the other religions listed here) and has some beliefs with the US constitution being divinely inspired, and even Joseph Smith running as a presidential candidate, and other prophets holding US government positions.
On other measures of patriotism, LDS also score high (though notably never the highest)
For example as you can see in the chart above, LDS score around 15pts higher than the US overall on whether they are “proud to be an American.”
Also, looking at agreement of “There’s no place I’d rather live than the US,” LDS score among the highest and 10 points higher than the US overall (81% LDS agreement vs. 71% US overall)
However, LDS are similar to other Americans in not being as proud about “America being a moral good in the world today” (LDS 38% proud vs. 24% US overall) and “the way democracy is working in America today” (LDS 24% proud vs. 18% US overall). This is a large drop off from the 64% of LDS who say they are proud to be an American.
But, overall, US Latter-day Saints are very patriotic.
Despite Being Arguably The Most Patriotic Religion, It Is Also A Religion With The Most Disagreement On What America’s Role Today Should Be
For example, look at this chart below…
While some religions are mostly in agreement one way or another, LDS are split down the middle. Half prefer a nation of people who follow the Christian faith and the other half prefer a nation of people belonging to a wide variety of religions.
Or look at their views on Trump…
43% are more likely to agree that he’s a dangerous dictator where as 56% are more likely to say he’s a strong leader.
And one last one I’ll highlight is this one…
64% of LDS are more likely to agree that the US should play the role of a reliable neighbor, but the 35% are more likely to agree that the US should be a strong nation.
On all of these, LDS might not be the religion that shows the most disagreement, but disagreement is high across all of these items.
I was curious the religion that showed the most division on these tradeoff questions1, so I did a bit more analysis.
I found that LDS was the most likely religion to disagree with themselves on the political tradeoff questions.
Conclusion
US Latter-day Saints strongly agree in American exceptionalism and show strong patriotism more so than most other religions, but LDS are also among the most divided religion on what the US should look like now and going into the future.
Some prefer the US to be made up of many religions, others prefer the US to be a christian nation
Some think that the US should be a reliable neighbor cooperating with other nations, and others think that the US should be a mighty nation who is no hesitant to use force.
Some see Donald Trump as a dictator undermining democracy and others see him a strong leader who we should give more power to.
Do you see Latter-day Saints as being patriotic? Can you see the modern political landscape dividing Mormons? Let me know what you think below.
There were a total of 4 tradeoff questions where they provided data for the religion break in the report. Here is the table:
