{"id":16404,"date":"2022-12-15T14:57:51","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T19:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=16404"},"modified":"2022-12-15T14:57:51","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T19:57:51","slug":"early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/12\/early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind","title":{"rendered":"Early Signs that Evangelicals May Be Ready to Leave Donald Trump Behind"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Gage Skidmore \/ Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There have been growing indications that evangelicals may be ready to look for someone new after Donald Trump\u2019s announcement that he will run again for President in the 2024 election. Evangelicals were particularly pivotal in Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 victory over Hilary Clinton, <\/span>with 58% of protestants<\/span><\/a>\u00a0voting for Trump over Hilary\u2019s 39%. In the 2020 election,\u00a0<\/span>59%<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of voters who frequently attended religious services voted for Trump over Biden. However, whereas a large share of Christians,\u00a0<\/span>64%<\/span><\/a>, tended to agree with all or nearly all of Trump\u2019s stances on political issues, only 15% stated they would describe him as morally upstanding.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Evangelicals have often struggled with how to balance their agreement with Donald Trump\u2019s stances on issues like <\/span>abortion<\/span><\/a>\u00a0over what many have perceived as a less-than-moral character, including a series of divorces, caustic comments against his rivals, and an overall braggadocios persona. Some of that baggage has muted the enthusiasm from previous evangelical supporters, such as Robert Jeffress, pastor of a Dallas megachurch who was previously very enthusiastic for the former President\u2019s previous campaigns. \u201cI believe the Republican Party is headed for a civil war, and that is something I prefer to stay out of. If Donald Trump wins the 2024 nomination \u2014 and I think the probability of that is very high \u2014 I will gladly and enthusiastically support him. He 100 percent delivered for the evangelical and faith community, and I continue to count him as both a friend and the greatest President we\u2019ve had since Ronald Reagan,\u201d he said while avoiding an outright endorsement for the President before primaries. Writing for\u00a0<\/span>The Washington Post<\/span><\/em><\/a>, former trump ally Mike Evans who previously served on the President\u2019s evangelical advisory board, wrote that despite Trump keeping many of his promises to evangelicals, \u201cWe had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us. I cannot do that anymore.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Certainly, potential candidates like Florida governor Ron DeSantis strike a broader appeal to evangelicals. A November\u00a0<\/span>poll<\/span><\/a>\u00a0found that 43% of Texas Republicans would choose DeSantis over Trump. That number jumped significantly from an October poll when the governor only received 29%. DeSantis has proven himself to be a well-rounded candidate, with his resounding reelection victory in Florida this past November, as well as the general \u201creddening\u201d of the formerly purple state. He also has a family man image, and while still mirroring some of the fighting qualities of Donald Trump that evangelicals admire, he has stayed away from some of the missteps that Trump has. Trump has already begun to garner criticism for his activities, including his recent\u00a0<\/span>dinner with Ye West and Nick Fuentes<\/span><\/a>. West has been ostracized for what many perceive to be antisemitic remarks, including a recent appearance with Alex Jones where he\u00a0<\/span>praised Hitler<\/span><\/a>. Fuentes\u00a0<\/span>has been labeled<\/span><\/a>\u00a0a white nationalist and also of making antisemitic remarks. Although the former President stated he was trying to help a \u201ctroubled\u201d individual by meeting with Ye and did not know who Fuentes was, the dinner required\u00a0<\/span>Republicans like Mitch McConnell<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to denounce white supremacy and antisemitism, claims that Democrats have constantly tried to stick to Donald Trump and his allies. With still some time before the election, it remains to be seen how much patience evangelicals have for Donald Trump\u2019s positives and pitfalls.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have been growing indications that evangelicals may be ready to look for someone new after Donald Trump\u2019s announcement that he will run again for President in the 2024 election. Evangelicals were particularly pivotal in Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 victory over Hilary Clinton, with 58% of protestants\u00a0voting for Trump over Hilary\u2019s 39%. In the 2020 election,\u00a059%\u00a0of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":16117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nEarly Signs that Evangelicals May Be Ready to Leave Donald Trump Behind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many indications lead to evangelicals losing support for Donald Trump in his upcoming campaigns.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Early Signs that Evangelicals May Be Ready to Leave Donald Trump Behind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many indications lead to evangelicals losing support for Donald Trump in his upcoming campaigns.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/12\/early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-12-15T19:57:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2022\/11\/Donald-Trump_credit-gage-skidmore-flickr-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Early Signs that Evangelicals May Be Ready to Leave Donald Trump Behind","description":"Many indications lead to evangelicals losing support for Donald Trump in his upcoming campaigns.","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Early Signs that Evangelicals May Be Ready to Leave Donald Trump Behind","og_description":"Many indications lead to evangelicals losing support for Donald Trump in his upcoming campaigns.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/12\/early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2022-12-15T19:57:51+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":576,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2022\/11\/Donald-Trump_credit-gage-skidmore-flickr-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/12\/early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/12\/early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind","name":"Early Signs that Evangelicals May Be Ready to Leave Donald Trump Behind","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/12\/early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/12\/early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2022\/11\/Donald-Trump_credit-gage-skidmore-flickr-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2022-12-15T19:57:51+00:00","dateModified":"2022-12-15T19:57:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/77cb6eeb5c74ee0eb8c77ea1ebc43c6a"},"description":"Many indications lead to evangelicals losing support for Donald Trump in his upcoming campaigns.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/12\/early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/12\/early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/12\/early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2022\/11\/Donald-Trump_credit-gage-skidmore-flickr-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2022\/11\/Donald-Trump_credit-gage-skidmore-flickr-scaled.jpg","width":768,"height":576,"caption":"Gage Skidmore \/ Flickr"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2022\/12\/early-signs-that-evangelicals-may-be-ready-to-leave-donald-trump-behind#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Early Signs that Evangelicals May Be Ready to Leave Donald Trump Behind"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/77cb6eeb5c74ee0eb8c77ea1ebc43c6a","name":"Leigh Pizzutilla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/824\/82495162063119d033794eb2206a0067x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/824\/82495162063119d033794eb2206a0067x96.jpg","caption":"Leigh Pizzutilla"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/lpizzutilla"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16404"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16410,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16404\/revisions\/16410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}