Hillary Clinton is way ahead of Donald Trump among Catholics in the US, according to the recent Pew Research Center survey, thanks largely to a huge majority of support among Hispanic voters.

The poll results found that the Democrat holds a 17-point lead over the Republican among registered Catholic voters. Clinton is on 56 points while Trump is on 39.

Among Latino Catholics however, the margin is 77-16 per cent in favour of Clinton.

This means that Trump actually has a narrow lead among white Catholics, by 50 points to Clinton's 46.

At a similar point in the 2012 presidential race Catholics were broadly evenly split between Barack Obama (49 per cent) and Mitt Romney (47 per cent). Exit polls showed that 50 per cent of Catholics voted for Obama and 48 per cent for Romney.

Yesterday, Christian Today reported how evangelical Christians are rallying behind Trump, according to the same Pew survey, while "nones" – atheists, agnostics and "nothing in particular" voters were supporting Clinton.

"Considering both groups are quite large, the votes of white evangelical Protestants and religious 'nones' could be important to the outcome of the 2016 election," Pew said in its report.