Couched in his familiar inflammatory rhetoric was Trump’s concern that this reliable conservative base might not turn out because he himself was not on the ballot. It was pure Trump, of course, but it was also quite possibly true. In 2016, he had won 81% of the evangelical vote. In 2018, that number had dwindled, but only slightly. He is still viewed favourably by 71% of them – as opposed to some 45% of the American public. [...]
The baffling thing for many people, of course, was the fact that they even turned out in the first place. Here was a man who had supported abortion rights, and who lived a life antithetical to evangelical values. He was thrice divorced; he boasted about his sexual conquests and paid hush money to a porn star. He had also invested in gambling and incurred enormous debts, both of which were anathema to evangelicals. Further, he clearly knew nothing about the Bible.[...]
From 1996 to 2000 over 65% voted for Republican candidates for president. From 2004 to 2012, their vote was in the mid-to high 70%. They had voted for John McCain, who had denounced Falwell, and then for a Mormon, Mitt Romney, whom they didn’t consider Christian. Today they make up about a third of Republican voters.[...]
Many Christian Right leaders say flatly that they voted for Trump in spite of his personal life. Robert Jeffress, a Houston pastor, and one of Trump’s earliest supporters, said after the revelation about the porn star, “Americans knew that they weren’t voting for an altar boy.” Peggy Nance, the head of Concerned Women for America, said, “We weren’t looking for a husband. We were looking for a bodyguard.” They and other sophisticates saw the relationship as transactional, but many in the pews plucked stories from the Bible to justify their choice: King Cyrus was a heathen, but he defended Israel; King David was an adulterer, but he was never impeached.
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