In many ways, this is a familiar story.
About eight in 10 white evangelical Christians supported Trump in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, and Pew Research Centre’s validated voter survey found that a similar share supported him in 2016.
But this is a new campaign, and that support has remained durable – even though Republican voters in the early primaries had several openly conservative Christian candidates to choose from, none of whom faced the legal troubles and misconduct allegations that Trump does. In the Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina Republican primary contests earlier this year, Trump won between 55 per cent and 69 per cent of white evangelical voters, according to AP VoteCast.
Trump even criticised one competitor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for signing strict abortion curbs into law. In past years, some Trump surrogates have portrayed Trump as friendly to the LGBTQ+ community.
Trump was the only Republican candidate facing scores of criminal charges, ranging from allegations that he conspired to overturn his 2020 election defeat to his current trial on allegations he falsified business records in seeking illegally to sway the 2016 election with hush money to porn actor Stormy Daniels.
Trump was also the only GOP candidate with a history of casino ventures and two divorces, as well as allegations of sexual misconduct – one of them affirmed by a civil court verdict.
Republican primary voters still overwhelmingly chose Trump.
This has frustrated a minority of conservative evangelicals who see Trump as an unrepentant poser, using the Bible and prayer sessions for photo ops. They see him as lacking real faith and facing credible, serious misconduct allegations while campaigning with incendiary rhetoric and authoritarian ambitions.
Karen Swallow Prior, a Christian author and literary scholar who has spoken against fellow evangelicals’ embrace of Trump, said this support in 2024 is familiar but “intensified”.
In the past, she said Trump supporters hoped but weren’t certain that Trump shared their Christian faith.
“Now his supporters believe themselves,” she said. “Despite the fact that Trump clearly wavers on abortion and he wavers on LGBTQ issues, those things are just ignored, they’re just erased out of the narrative.”
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At the Ohio rally, several attendees cited their belief that Trump has followed the Christian path of repenting and starting a new life.
“We’ve all come from sinning. Jesus sat with sinners, so he’s going to sit with Trump,” Vaughn said. “It’s not about where Trump came from, it’s about where he’s going and where he’s trying to take us.”
The Ohio rally, like other Trump events, featured a recording of the national anthem sung by some of those convicted for crimes related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, whom Trump called “patriots”.
At the rally’s entrance, one group handed out pamphlets urging attendees both to “trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation” and to support the “J6 patriots”.
Caleb Cinnamon, 37, of Dayton, identified as a Christian and said opposing abortion is a top priority. He cited Trump’s three Supreme Court appointments, who proved decisive in the 2022 decision overturning of the Roe v. Wade precedent that had legalised abortion nationwide.
“Donald Trump’s really the first president who’s not only vocalised an anti-abortion stance but also put action behind it,” he said. “Republicans since the 1990s were saying ‘We’re going to do this about abortion’, and then they don’t.”
Jody Picagli of Englewood, Ohio, said her Catholic faith and views on abortion are central.
“I’m a big right-to-life person,” she said. “That’s huge for me. And just morals. I think the moral compass is so out of whack right now. And we need religion and church back in here.”
She acknowledged that, with the Supreme Court turning the abortion issue over to the states, a future president Trump may not impact abortion law.
“But I know he’ll never go to an abortion clinic and visit it, like our vice president did,” she said, alluding to Kamala Harris’ tour of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota in March.
Christian supporters of Trump did also cite non-religious issues – from foreign policy and immigration to gas prices and inflation.
Robert Jones, the president of the Public Religion Research Institute and an author of books on white supremacy in American Christianity, said the strong evangelical support for Trump isn’t surprising. But he said that in a 2023 PRRI poll, less than half of white evangelicals said that abortion was a critical issue to them personally. More than half said that five others were a critical issue, including human trafficking, public schools, rising prices, immigration and crime.
“One of the biggest myths about white evangelical support for Trump is this idea that it’s really about abortion and they’re holding their nose and voting for Trump,” Jones said.
He added that Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants “invading the country and changing our cultural heritage” resonates with his audience.
The slogan “Make America Great Again” echoes an “ethno-religious vision of a white Christian America, just barely underneath the surface,” Jones said.
He acknowledged the racial lines aren’t absolute, with Trump attracting black supporters such as South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.
The Ohio rally included a vast majority of white attendees but with some black and other ethnic groups represented.
Earlier this year, Trump hit multiple applause lines in speaking to a conservative audience at the National Religious Broadcasters convention.
“We will protect Christians in our schools and in our military and our government,” Trump said. “We will protect God in our public square … I will protect the content that is pro-God.”
Trump pledged a federal task force to fight the “persecution against Christians in America” and “the toxic poison of gender ideology,” saying “God created two genders, male and female.”
Trump’s rallies take on the symbols, rhetoric and agenda of Christian nationalism, which typically includes a belief that America was founded to be a Christian nation and seeks to privilege Christianity in public life.
Trump endorsed a bible edition that includes US founding documents and the lyrics to Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
“This is a Bible specifically for a kind of white evangelical audience that sees themselves as the rightful inheritors of the country,” Jones said, citing a 2023 PRRI poll in which about half of white evangelicals agreed that God intended America as a promised land for European Christians.
Trump’s campaign events have the feel of a worship service. The former president has shared a “God Made Trump” video depicting him in messianic terms. Jones said Trump builds on the messianic theme with statements like, “They’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just standing in the way.”
At the Ohio rally, some said they believed the nation or its founding documents, such as the Bill of Rights, had Christian origins, though historians dispute such assertions.
Some Trump supporters voiced hope for a more Christian America.
Thomas Isbell of Greensboro, North Carolina, who has set up vending booths for years at Trump rallies around the country, said his “God, Guns and Trump” shirts are a top seller.
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“It’s a Christian country,” he said, adding that if he were president, he would only allow public worship by Christians. “We’re not going to set up a temple to no other gods in our land.”
AP
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