diff --git a/karate-core/src/main/java/com/intuit/karate/XmlUtils.java b/karate-core/src/main/java/com/intuit/karate/XmlUtils.java
index 1dd570fd7..68dd2d79e 100755
--- a/karate-core/src/main/java/com/intuit/karate/XmlUtils.java
+++ b/karate-core/src/main/java/com/intuit/karate/XmlUtils.java
@@ -111,6 +111,7 @@ public static Document toXmlDoc(String xml) {
     public static Document toXmlDoc(String xml, boolean namespaceAware) {
         DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
         factory.setNamespaceAware(namespaceAware);
+        factory.setIgnoringElementContentWhitespace(false);
         try {
             DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
             DtdEntityResolver dtdEntityResolver = new DtdEntityResolver();
@@ -294,7 +295,9 @@ public static int getChildElementCount(Node node) {
     private static Object getElementAsObject(Node node, boolean removeNamespace) {
         int childElementCount = getChildElementCount(node);
         if (childElementCount == 0) {
-            return StringUtils.trimToNull(node.getTextContent());
+            String textContent = node.getTextContent();
+            return StringUtils.isBlank(textContent) ? null:
+                textContent;
         }
         Map<String, Object> map = new LinkedHashMap<>(childElementCount);
         NodeList nodes = node.getChildNodes();
diff --git a/karate-core/src/test/java/com/intuit/karate/core/ScenarioEngineTest.java b/karate-core/src/test/java/com/intuit/karate/core/ScenarioEngineTest.java
index 8268cc2ca..b065a4934 100644
--- a/karate-core/src/test/java/com/intuit/karate/core/ScenarioEngineTest.java
+++ b/karate-core/src/test/java/com/intuit/karate/core/ScenarioEngineTest.java
@@ -232,6 +232,11 @@ void testEvalXmlAndXpath() {
         matchEquals("temp", "<foo><bar>baz</bar></foo>");
         assign("temp", "get myMap /root/foo");
         matchEquals("temp", "<foo><bar>baz</bar></foo>");
+
+        // preserves whitespace in content
+        assign("myXml", "<root><foo><bar> baz </bar></foo></root>");
+        value = engine.evalKarateExpression("$myXml/root/foo/bar");
+        matchEval(value.getValue(), " baz ");
     }
 
     @Test
diff --git a/karate-demo/src/test/java/demo/xml/preserve-whitespace.feature b/karate-demo/src/test/java/demo/xml/preserve-whitespace.feature
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..5cf0c70df
--- /dev/null
+++ b/karate-demo/src/test/java/demo/xml/preserve-whitespace.feature
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+Feature: Preserve white space in text content
+Scenario:
+    * def xml =
+    """
+    <myRoot xml:space="preserve">
+        <myNode> myValue </myNode>
+    </myRoot>
+    """
+    * match karate.xmlPath(xml, '/myRoot/myNode') == ' myValue '
\ No newline at end of file