How Trump Is Securing the Evangelical Vote Ahead of Iowa

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

66% : Jackson Lahmeyer, the Christian nationalist pastor of Sheridan Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has hailed Trump as the "best pro-Christian president."
59% : A December poll from NBC News, The Des Moines Register, and Mediacom found that 51% of Iowa evangelicals support Trump, nearly double the share backing DeSantis.
48% : Trump has also turned to a motley crew of loyalist pastors to boost his credibility, as noted by Axios.
44% : "Religious conflict is something that Trump has laced into his campaign rhetoric.
43% : Meanwhile, in Iowa, Ottumwa Baptist Temple pastor Travis Decker told The New York Times he wants Trump "to get a second shot at it, another chance to just prove himself."
39% : Opening for the GOP front-runner at a rally last month in Coralville, Iowa, Joel Tenney, a self-described evangelist who deems Christianity incompatible with the Democratic Party, told the crowd that reelecting Trump was "part of a spiritual battle" against demonic forces.
38% : Of course, disapproval from established evangelical leaders amounts to little when the laity so fervently backs Trump.
37% : When Donald Trump launched his 2024 presidential campaign, many prominent evangelical leaders were wary of declaring their support.
31% : Lahmeyer, who has compared Democrats to demons, is the founder of Pastors for Trump, a group that earned Trump's blessing and adulation after it organized a national call to prayer ahead of his March indictment in the New York business fraud case.
27% : "When Donald Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country.
21% : A 2020 election denier, Decker noted his dislike for "some of the language that Trump uses."
8% : And though Vander Plaats is hoping for something like a repeat of 2016 -- when Trump lost Iowa to the more evangelical-tinged Ted Cruz campaign -- anything outside of a total Trump victory seems unlikely: He currently leads his closest competitors, DeSantis and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, by more than 30 points among likely Republican voters in the state.

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