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Evangelicals All In For Trump

Results of new Pew study shows they're more solidly behind the Donald than they were at this point behind Romney
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Pew’s latest survey of religion and the 2016 election finds that white Evangelicals are strongly behind Donald Trump. Excerpts:

Indeed, the latest Pew Research Center survey finds that despite the professed wariness toward Trump among many high-profile evangelical Christian leaders, evangelicals as a whole are, if anything, even more strongly supportive of Trump than they were of Mitt Romney at a similar point in the 2012 campaign. At that time, nearly three-quarters of white evangelical Protestant registered voters said they planned to vote for Romney, including one-quarter who “strongly” supported him.1 Now, fully 78% of white evangelical voters say they would vote for Trump if the election were held today, including about a third who “strongly” back his campaign.

More:

While many evangelical voters say they “strongly” support Trump over Clinton, this does not necessarily mean Trump is their ideal choice for president or that they are convinced he shares their religious convictions. In the current survey, 42% of white evangelicals say it will be difficult to choose between Trump and Clinton because neither one would make a good president. And a January Pew Research Center poll found that 44% of white evangelical Republicans view Trump as “not too” or “not at all” religious.

But even if many evangelicals do not think he shares their religious commitment, most do think that Trump understands the needs of people like them. Indeed, fully six-in-ten white evangelical voters (61%) say they think Trump understands their needs “very” or “fairly” well, while just 24% say this about Clinton.

Pew goes on to say that white Evangelical support for Trump is driven at least as much by opposition to Hillary Clinton as actual support for Trump. In other words, they’re not voting for Trump as much as they are voting against Clinton. Pew found that large numbers of pro-Hillary voters are in the same boat: they’re voting against Trump, not for her.

And get this:

White evangelical Protestants who say they attend religious services regularly are just as strongly supportive of Donald Trump as are
evangelicals who attend religious services less often. Fully three-quarters of both groups say they would vote for Trump over
Clinton if the election were today, and roughly a third in each group describe themselves as strong Trump supporters.

If memory serves, back during the GOP primaries, there was a Trump gap between churchgoing Evangelicals, who generally opposed Trump, and non-churchgoing Evangelicals, who generally embraced him. The gap has now vanished.

Read the whole thing.

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