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Donald Trump\u2014the far and away GOP frontrunner\u2014has secured a quick win in Iowa, where his campaign\u2019s Christian rhetoric stoked his fan base but disturbed some evangelical leaders.<\/p>\n
National outlets barely waited for the ink on the ballots to dry before calling the race for Trump only 30 minutes<\/a> after caucus sites closed. Some sites were still voting.<\/p>\n Trump won with 51 percent of the vote, more than the other candidates combined, sweeping all but one county<\/a> in the state. The former president consistently led in the polls<\/a> by around 30 points, thanks largely to support from evangelical Christians. Around half told<\/a> pollsters he was their first choice.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a shift from the last time Trump ran in Iowa. The state\u2019s evangelicals weren\u2019t excited about the foul-mouthed real estate mogul in 2016 and favored Ted Cruz, viewing Trump as \u201cthe lesser of two evils\u201d when paired against Hillary Clinton in the election, said Jeff VanDerWerff, a political science professor at Northwestern College, a Christian college in Orange City, Iowa.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that\u2019s just been really fascinating to me over the last eight years,\u201d VanDerWerff told Christianity Today<\/em>, \u201chas been this slow migration and now this real embrace, it seems, of Trump. That he\u2019s become or is seen as this instrument of God.\u201d<\/p>\n Early entrance polls from CNN found<\/a> that 55 percent of white evangelical Christians said they were supporting Trump.<\/p>\n Despite subzero temperatures, supporters heeded Trump\u2019s call to turn out: \u201cYou can\u2019t sit home. If you\u2019re sick as a dog, you say, \u2018Darling, I gotta make it,\u2019 \u201d Trump told a crowd at an Indianola rally Sunday. \u201cEven if you vote and then pass away, it\u2019s worth it, remember.\u201d<\/p>\n This loyalty comes despite Trump spending less time in Iowa than his competition. His ground campaign was complicated by the president\u2019s legal troubles pulling him elsewhere. A week before the caucuses, he had an appearance in Washington, DC, for an appeals court hearing Tuesday and another court appearance in New York Thursday.<\/p>\n Two-thirds of white evangelicals voting in Iowa believe Trump would remain fit for the presidency even if convicted, according to entrance polls by CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n Monday\u2019s results in Iowa give Trump a chance to say, \u201cI\u2019ve got all the support and momentum. The future primaries are kind of pointless at this point,\u201d Daniel Bennett, department chair of political science at John Brown University, told CT. \u201cHe can say that, you know, this is what we thought it would be and other folks should rally behind him to beat [President] Joe Biden.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley were competing for a second-place finish that would allow them to emerge as a clear Trump alternative, something neither landed. With 94 percent<\/a> of the vote tallied, DeSantis led with over 21 percent, while Haley tailed him at 19 percent.<\/p>\n DeSantis\u2019s narrow capture of second comes after he hit all 99 counties in Iowa. He also earned top endorsements from Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, as well as pastors<\/a> and faith leaders, and on Monday, the campaign held a prayer call with one of those leaders, Bob Vandar Plaats.<\/p>\n As the front-runner, Trump\u2019s attitude toward the primary has been one of annoyance that it\u2019s happening at all. He skipped out on the candidate debates, opting to hold rallies or town halls as counterprogramming. His camp believes that the former president\u2019s base of support is too strong for any other candidate to overcome, that those challenging him for the nomination are disloyal, and that they may as well skip to the general election.<\/p>\n And unlike the sparse organization he had in 2016, his ground campaign deployed<\/a> surrogates to make Trump\u2019s case for him: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem; firebrand GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia; and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump\u2019s former press secretary, all made stops in Iowa.<\/p>\n At Trump\u2019s rallies, speakers, from pastors to local politicians, cast the 2024 election in spiritual terms: calling Trump\u2019s legal troubles as persecution, his foes\u2014from the media, Democrats, or Republicans who have endorsed his opponents\u2014as evil forces, and his supporters as true believers.<\/p>\n The other GOP candidates \u201cshould have all thrown their support behind [Trump],\u201d Iowa voter Craig Fleakei told CT. \u201cAnd if they didn\u2019t, then they agree with the results of 2020 and they don\u2019t have a backbone,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Trump has made inroads with a different kind of evangelical<\/a> voter. Over his presidency, supporters began to identify as evangelical<\/a> whether they were consistent churchgoers or not.<\/p>\n Ryan Burge, a political scientist with Eastern Illinois University who specializes in religion and politics, noted<\/a> in his Substack newsletter that only a quarter of Iowans identified as born-again\/evangelical Christians. Over half of Iowans attend religious services less than once a year, and only a quarter of Iowans report attending church weekly. Some of the steepest declines in religious attendance occurred among rural areas of the state, he noted.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s just no way to look at this and argue that Iowa is a bastion of Christian values,\u201d Burge wrote<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s just not.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Christian imagery and language was all over Trump campaign events across the state. At a rally last month in Coralville, Iowa, one woman wearing an oversized cross necklace toted a Trump sign. Another wore a T-shirt that read, \u201cJesus Is My Savior, Trump Is My President.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it\u2019s [pro-life], whether it\u2019s Israel, whether it\u2019s religious freedom, the litany of good things that are important to Christians \u2026 President Trump promised and then delivered,\u201d Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, the Trump campaign\u2019s senior Iowa advisor, told CT.<\/p>\n But their use of Christianity has led into some shaky theological territory.<\/p>\n Perhaps inspired<\/a> by one of DeSantis\u2019s Florida gubernatorial campaign<\/a> ads, one video that Trump shared<\/a> on his Truth Social account\u2014and played<\/a> at campaign rallies\u2014is a prime example. Made by a group that calls itself<\/a> Trump\u2019s Online War Machine, the video adapted the late broadcaster Paul Harvey\u2019s \u201cSo God Made a Farmer\u201d monologue with artificial intelligence to weave in mentions of Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cGod looked down on his planned Paradise and said, \u2018I need a caretaker.\u2019 So God gave us Trump,\u201d the narrator said<\/a>. The video paints Trump in hagiographic terms: as someone who goes into a \u201cden of vipers\u201d and deals with the \u201cfake news, for their tongues as sharp as serpents\u201d (a reference to Psalm 140), and wraps up \u201ca hard week\u2019s work by attending church on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGod said, \u2018I need somebody who will be strong and courageous, who will not be afraid or terrified of the wolves when they attack a man who cares for the flock,\u2019 \u201d the narration continues, \u201c \u2018a shepherd to mankind who will never leave nor forsake them.\u2019 \u2026 So God made Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n The rhetoric has troubled some faith leaders in the state.<\/p>\n \u201cI find it absolutely sickening,\u201d Michael Demastus, pastor of Fort Des Moines Church of Christ, told<\/a> Deseret News<\/em><\/a>. \u201cTrump is not the Messiah.\u201d<\/p>\n Steve Deace, a conservative Christian Iowa-based talk show host who supported DeSantis, said<\/a> on social media, \u201cWe already have a Messiah to place our hope and faith in. What we need is a president who can manage this place somewhat competently until He returns.\u201d<\/p>\n Monday\u2019s results show that, at least in Iowa, the average white evangelical voter was not troubled by Trump\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n \u201cSure, certain pastors \u2026 might look at that language and kind of roll their eyes or even be really troubled by it,\u201d said Bennett at John Brown. \u201cBut if you consider yourself maybe culturally Christian or have this relationship with Jesus that\u2019s not being discipled outside of political echo chambers or something, I think you\u2019re going to be more predisposed to that and not be bothered by it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n At the Coralville rally, Joel Tenney, a 27-year-old evangelist, told the crowd that the election was \u201cpart of a spiritual battle\u201d that included \u201cdemonic forces.\u201d Tenney predicted that Trump would win the White House and that when he did, \u201cthere will be a retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump allies say that evangelical voters\u2019 loyalty to Trump stems from the track record of his presidential administration.<\/p>\n In September, at a summit hosted by the conservative Family Research Council, Trump made the pitch<\/a> that \u201cno president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have. And I will keep on fighting for Christians as hard as I can for four more years in the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n He said his administration did more for religious liberty \u201cthan any administration in history, according to everybody.\u201d He\u2019s pledged to establish a task force to address \u201canti-Christian\u201d bias if reelected.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the biggest thing I’ve heard from Christian voters is \u2018Let’s make sure that everything that the president did for us is maintained,\u2019 \u201d Kaufmann, Trump\u2019s advisor in Iowa, said. \u201cBut also, \u2018let’s make sure that we can continue to go on offense to fight for Christianity,\u2019 which the president has done and will continue to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Next up in the primary comes New Hampshire, where Haley\u2019s poll<\/a> numbers have been on the rise with the state\u2019s more moderate electorate. But there as well, Trump holds<\/a> the lead.<\/p>\n Haley spent less time in Iowa than the others. Her campaign was boosted by a November endorsement from the conservative group Americans for Prosperity Action, which reached out to voters in every county.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the crowd of presidential hopefuls has started to thin: Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the GOP candidate most willing to criticize Trump, dropped out Wednesday. Political newcomer and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy<\/a> took his fourth place finish in Iowa as a sign to bow out of the race. After garnering around 7 percent Monday night, he suspended his campaign and encouraged his supporters to back Trump instead.<\/p>\n