The Iowa caucus on Monday will provide the first test of whether Donald Trump’s secret weapon in the 2016 GOP presidential nomination contest – his strong support among blue-collar evangelical Christians – is still working for him in 2024.
All signs suggest the answer is: yes.
The biggest surprise in Trump’s march to the nomination in 2016 was how many White evangelical Christians voted for a thrice-married casino-owning New Yorker who had previously expressed liberal views on social issues such as abortion. The key to Trump’s breakthrough among evangelical Christians was his commanding support among the members of that community without a college degree, who supported him then in much greater numbers than those with advanced education.
This time, the former president is running better in national polling than in the 2016 contest among virtually every major demographic group across the party. But blue-collar evangelicals could once again prove a crucial line of defense for Trump in the early states, including Iowa, where voters are more engaged in the race and the results will determine whether his remaining rivals can seriously threaten him for the nomination.
As Texas Sen. Ted Cruz did when he ran against Trump in the 2016 race, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pinned his hopes this year largely on mobilizing Iowa’s large number of evangelical Christian conservatives. Like Cruz, DeSantis has staked out the far right flank on virtually every cultural issue in the race and made the case to evangelicals that they can’t trust Trump to deliver on the issues they care most about, including banning abortion and restricting options for transgender young people to participate in school sports or receive gender-affirming care. Late Friday night, DeSantis’ campaign announced he had obtained endorsements from 150 “faith leaders” across Iowa; many of the state’s…
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