The media keeps talking about how evangelicals are supporting Donald Trump, and Christian leaders are wringing their hands about it. But Biola poli-sci professor Darren Patrick Guerra crunches the numbers and shows that Trump isn’t winning the evangelical vote after all.
From The Myth of the Evangelical Trump Voters | Darren Patrick Guerra | First Things:
While it is true that Trump has won pluralities of evangelicals in some key states it is simply inaccurate to say that evangelicals solidly support Trump. Indeed the notion that anything close to a majority of evangelical voters support Trump is simply a media myth.
For example, when looking at Super Tuesday exit polls in the southern states several things are striking. First, while Trump has in some states carried a plurality of evangelical voters, the same data reveals that, on average, 64% of evangelicals in all southern states voted for someone other than Trump. Indeed, a majority (51%) voted collectively for either Rubio or Cruz instead of Trump. In addition, one must also realize that these polls only address Republican primary voters, but there are significant groups of evangelicals who are Democrats or Independents, so the anti-Trump vote amongst all evangelicals in the country might reach 80-90% once non-Republican primary voters are accounted for. With these numbers it seems difficult to draw the conclusion that evangelicals widely support Trump.
Furthermore, when one takes a closer look into the numbers it becomes clear that Trump does not come out on top among those voters for whom the religious faith of the candidate matters most. Voters in all the southern states except Oklahoma were asked, “How much does it matter to you that a candidate shares your religious beliefs?” Among those that responded “a great deal” Trump did not receive even a plurality of their votes. Ted Cruz beat Trump in this category by an average of 4 points. Similarly, on average, a majority (55%) of voters who answered “a great deal” voted for either Cruz or Rubio. Trump did better among those who said the religious views of the candidate mattered only “somewhat” and had his highest numbers among those who said religion did not matter at all. Even in the “somewhat” category 59% voted for someone other than Trump and 46% voted for either Cruz or Rubio.
Indeed there seemed to be a clear trend on Super Tuesday. Trump’s numbers were best among those with no religious motivation (41%) and he had his worst numbers among those who were most motivated by religion (30%). Conversely, Cruz’s numbers were best among the religiously motivated (34%) and lowest among those who had no religious motivation (13%). Rubio exhibited a slight inverse trend from 20-27% with his support rising slightly as religious motivation among voters went down. Put another way Trump did worst amongst those to whom religion mattered most and he did his best among those to whom it mattered not at all.
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