Former President Donald Trump’s legal problems off the campaign trail and aversion to directly addressing the issue of abortion appear to have done little to damage his support among the religious right.
Trump’s appearance at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference last weekend was a reminder to his challengers of his significant strength with the voting bloc, which will be critical for any Republican who wants to win the primary and general election.
But evangelical leaders argued the voting bloc is not entirely sold on backing Trump for the nomination, and candidates who want to peel off evangelical voters will have to earn their support.
“A lot of people like Trump and like what he did as president. So he’s familiar, and they’re familiar and he was received well,” said Timothy Head, executive director for the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
“They’re as interested or more interested in who can win who carries the same values and policies,” Head added. “They liked what they had with Trump, and now they’re assessing, is there anything even better? I think that’s the competition that’s unfolding.”
Trump earlier this year suggested evangelical leaders were showing “signs of disloyalty” by waiting to endorse his third White House campaign as other candidates entered the race.
But last weekend’s conference in Washington, D.C., underscored Trump’s enduring support with the religious right. He received multiple standing ovations during a speech that lasted more than an hour, while other 2024 candidates were limited to roughly 30 minutes or less for their own remarks.
Chris Christie, one of those 2024 candidates, was booed by the crowd when he used parts of his speech to directly attack Trump and his character.
And North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson drew applause when he used his remarks at the conference to endorse Trump’s White House bid.
The marriage between Trump and evangelical voters has often seemed like an odd one given the former president’s frequent attacks and name-calling of opponents, his comments on an “Access Hollywood” tape about groping women and the allegations he paid a porn star to keep an affair quiet.
But the evangelicals have turned out for Trump in both elections where he’s been on the ballot, with 77 percent of white, evangelical protestants voting for him in 2016 and 84 percent of them backing him in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.
“No president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have,” Trump said in his speech at the conference.
The support is largely owed to Trump’s policy record, with Trump enacting measures to protect religious freedom while in office, nominating three conservative Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, and relocating the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a move that won plaudits among the religious right.
“It’s been very interesting to watch how the center of gravity in the pro-Israel community has shifted from it being overwhelmingly a Jewish concern to a top issue among the evangelical Christian community,” said Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
“Trump raised the bar on that issue as he did on so many others,” Reed added.
Still, most major evangelical leaders who backed Trump during his previous campaigns have held off on endorsing, and other candidates are working to make inroads with religious voters that will help shape the GOP primary.
Former Vice President Mike Pence has been a fixture in the evangelical community for years. He speaks openly about his faith, and he has made his support for abortion restrictions central to his campaign platform.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) has taken a similar approach, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was warmly received by attendees at the Faith and Freedom conference last weekend.
One Republican strategist who is not aligned with any candidate running for president said DeSantis in particular “needs to lay down a marker that we will compete aggressively and effectively for voters of faith and that he has a good message and a strategy to win their support.”
Evangelical voters make up a majority of the GOP electorate in Iowa, which hosts the first caucus on the primary calendar next year. Candidates like Pence are investing significant time and resources in Iowa in hopes of using it as a springboard to overtake Trump and win the party’s nomination.
“The way that we sometimes say it at Faith and Freedom is you cannot win the White House with only evangelical voters, but you can’t win it without us,” Head said. “So in that regard, you have to, in order to fully maximize their participation, they have to not just believe in you, but really buy in.”