Super Tuesday and the battle for evangelicals
To the astonishment of his rivals and the consternation of a growing number of influential voices in the evangelical world, Donald Trump continues to be the candidate of choice for born-again Republicans in this year’s primary and caucus contests. Two weeks ago, Trump easily won a plurality of evangelical voters (34 percent), while Cruz (26 percent) and Marco Rubio (21 percent) wondered if perhaps they too should have been putting money in the communion plate all along.
With conservative evangelicals heavily represented in Super Tuesday states like Alabama, Texas, Georgia and Tennessee, evangelical icons and national publications have come out in an unprecedented effort to stop Trump. The Southern Baptist Convention’s Russell Moore has been leading the charge, starting around the time of Trump’s December 2015 declaration that the U.S. border should be closed to all Muslims. “We must not trade soul freedom for winning,” Moore warned his fellow evangelicals.
Last week, the preacher Max Lucado, who has been called “America’s Pastor” by Christianity Today, published a blog post rejecting Trump’s candidacy. It was so popular that the resulting traffic crashed Lucado’s server a half dozen times. A few days later, the Christian Post, an influential evangelical site, published a sharply worded editorial encouraging its readers to avoid the temptation of voting for Trump. A remarkable editors’ note said that “the Christian Post has not taken a position on a political candidate before today. We are making an exception because Trump is exceptionally bad and claims to speak for and represent the interests of evangelicals.”
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump holds up a Bible at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., September 25, 2015. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
For his part, Trump can claim the support from two of the heirs of evangelical royalty: Jerry Falwell Jr. and Franklin Graham. And he is fond of boasting that “I love the evangelicals, and they love me.” Tonight will test that claim, as voters in the buckle of the Bible Belt decide whether they like what they hear in the Gospel of Trump.
