The Church of Jesus Christ isn’t about the percentage of the U.S. population; it’s about a people doing their best to love and worship God. The data does its real work when it is in the service of that much loftier goal.
Wheatley Institute Affiliated Religion Scholar Justin Dyer wrote an analysis for the Deseret News on a recent report from the Cooperative Election Survey suggesting a 50% drop in the percentage of the U.S. population identifying as a Latter-Day Saint.
Dyer contrasted the Cooperative Election Survey numbers with those from similar studies by Pew Research Center and The Public Religion Research Institute’s Census of American Religion showing a much smaller decline in Latter-Day Saint affiliation.
This slight decline, Dyer notes, is also significantly less than those seen by other faiths in the United States.
These findings align with those mentioned in Wheatley Institute's Tides of Religion report, which may be read here.
For more information on religious affiliation and attendance in the United States, Dr. Devin Pope's Wheatley Institute lecture "Who’s Really Going to Church? Evidence From Cellphone Tracking Data" is another excellent analysis of American religious activity.