Trump eyes evangelical vote as key to Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa — Evangelical voters are set to play a pivotal role in next week’s Iowa caucuses amid signs they are steadfastly behind former President Trump. 

An NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll released last month showed Trump had 51 percent of evangelical Christians’ support among likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers, while Ron DeSantis received 26 percent and Nikki Haley received 12 percent. 

Top faith leaders point to Trump’s presidential record and fighter persona as why many evangelicals are largely aligning with Trump in the Republican race, despite legal controversies and some conservative pushback for failing to endorse national abortion restrictions.

“I recall eight years ago campaigning with President Trump, then businessman Trump, in Iowa ahead of the caucus, and there were many Christians who were skeptical that he would follow through on the grand promises he was making to evangelical Christians,” said Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas.

“But eight years later, people can look back on his first term and see that he did everything he promised for evangelicals,” he added.  

Iowa will hold the first nominating contest for the Republican primary on Monday, serving as the first major test of the 2024 election for Trump, DeSantis and Haley.

Key to clinching the Iowa caucuses are evangelical voters. Born-again or evangelical Christians made up 64 percent of Iowa caucusgoers during the 2016 GOP presidential primary alone, according to exit polling. That year, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) won the largest share of that voting bloc with 34 percent, followed by Trump at 22 percent and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) at 21 percent.  

Eight years later, Trump has retained a large share of evangelical voters who remain loyal to him. 

Chief among those promises that faith leaders point to in the former president’s sway over evangelical Christians was Trump’s appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices, effectively tilting the high court to the right. The appointment of the justices led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which established the constitutional right to abortion.  

They also point to moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the negotiation of the Abraham Accords and members of the Trump administration with ties to the religious community, including former Vice President Mike Pence.  

Other evangelical leaders, like Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of the influential Family Leader and a DeSantis supporter, are encouraging their community to move on, noting some evangelicals have been turned off by the chaos that surrounds the former president.  

Some of Trump’s controversies and indictments “is what has caused some evangelicals to say, ‘You know, we need to move on. We need to get past this,’” Vander Plaats said. 

Vander Plaats argued the polls “just don’t match my pulse” on evangelicals, but he acknowledged those controversies haven’t shaken off other evangelicals. 

“For some of the others, I think they’re like, ‘You know what, this system is being weaponized against us as evangelicals, and although he may not be the preacher that we want, he’s a disrupter that we need,’” Vander Plaats explained.  

Trump’s campaign is not taking any chances in Iowa, which he lost in 2016 to Cruz. The former president’s political operation has perfected its grassroots strategy in the state, which has involved maintaining and growing his support among the state’s evangelical Christian population.  

Earlier this week, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, were slated to headline an event for the campaign’s “Iowa Faith Tour.” The event was canceled due to inclement weather, but the planned event underscores the popularity the Huckabees hold with the state’s evangelical base.

Some evangelicals have floated Sanders as a potential running mate for Trump, including Terry Amann, pastor of the Church of the Way in Des Moines.

“She was somebody that Trump really leaned on for counsel,” Amann told The Hill, adding that he spoke to Trump directly and pitched Sanders as a potential pick.

However, there is some criticism of the former president among members of the evangelical voting bloc.  

Last year, Trump referred to DeSantis’s six-week abortion ban in Florida as a “terrible thing” and has dodged questions over whether he will support restrictions to the procedure at the federal level. While Democrats have been able to use abortion restrictions against Republicans, Trump’s conservative critics have hit him over his comments. In an Iowa town hall last week on CNN, DeSantis said Trump was not anti-abortion.

“There’s frustration because his pro-life position has been very weakened. He came off being the most pro-life president in our lifetime, and now he has been hedging on that. So that has not been popular,” Amann said.  

Vander Plaats, too, suggested “he’s not speaking our language anymore” when it comes to issues like abortion. 

“… There’s a lot of policies that I look at, and I go ‘Well, he’s just not with us on those issues anymore,’” the Family Leader CEO and president explained. “So like the sanctity of human life — he throws DeSantis under the bus ‘cause the heartbeat bill’s too harsh. Well, that’s not an evangelical position. He throws pro-lifers under the bus for losing the 2022 election.” 

Jeffress, the Texas pastor, said that from a national perspective, there has only been “a small sliver” of evangelical voters who believed Trump was moderating his stance on abortion.  

“I’ve talked to him about it,” Jeffress said. “He wasn’t moderating his pro-life stance, but he was correct in saying it’s a very complex issue. The fact is, if you want a national ban, it’s going to require compromise.” 

At the same time, other evangelical and faith-based leaders have thrown their support behind DeSantis and Haley. The Florida governor notched the notable endorsement from Vander Plaats and boasts a Family and Freedom Coalition of pastors and other key faith-based officials. 

Haley scored an unexpected endorsement from Marlys Popma, another top evangelical in the Hawkeye State who has served as the Iowa Right to Life’s president and Iowa GOP’s executive director. Popma was recently featured in an ad for Haley saying in part, “Nikki’s a sister in Christ, she has guts.” 

Still, many evangelicals rally warmly around Trump. A New York Times/Siena College poll in July found Trump receiving the highest favorability rating between him, DeSantis, President Biden and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 70 percent. 

That’s despite what was an initially crowded primary field — which included Pence and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who both leaned into faith as part of their campaign message — and Trump’s legal woes and controversies.  

“I think evangelical voters are looking for a conservative response to Biden, and Trump still remains in the forefront of their minds with some significant changes that took place,” explained Dave Wilson, a former president of the Palmetto Family Institute in South Carolina who is unaligned in the primary. 

“So for some voters, an emphasis on some, it is ‘Let’s go back to the guy that we know did things right, instead of trusting somebody new, who will have to get his or her feet wet when they get to Washington, D.C.,” he added.