Nicolai Haugsted
Trump’s once-reliable evangelical support is being tested by his decision to go to war.
Donald Trump has relied on white evangelical Christians through three presidential elections, turning religious conservatives into one of the most dependable pillars of his political coalition.
Support has survived controversies that might have ended other political alliances. Trump rewarded that loyalty during his first term with conservative judges, abortion-policy changes and other priorities welcomed by many evangelical leaders.
The relationship now appears considerably more complicated.
J. Derrick Lemons, a University of Georgia religion professor who has spent years studying Trump’s evangelical network, says anger over the president’s war with Iran has created a significant rupture among some religious conservatives ahead of the midterm elections.
“It’s not like the cheerleader years of yesteryear,” Lemons told Raw Story.
“The midterms are not looking good.”
Polling does not establish that evangelical voters have abandoned Republicans as a group. It does, however, show substantial dissatisfaction with Trump’s Iran policy among a constituency that has historically given him overwhelming support.
Trump once had plenty of evangelical cheerleaders
Lemons has had an unusually close view of the relationship.
His new book, Trump and the Politics of Prayer: Inside the Spiritual World of His Faith Advisory Team, co-authored with theologian Amos Yong, draws partly on 25 prayer-strategy calls involving members of Trump’s faith advisory network between the 2020 election and January 2021.
The researchers also attended gatherings and interviewed participants while examining how evangelical, Pentecostal and charismatic leaders interpreted Trump’s political career through concepts including spiritual warfare, prophecy, Christian Zionism and efforts to “re-Christianize” America.
Lemons argues that Trump built enormous goodwill with those leaders during his first presidency for a fairly straightforward reason.
“Trump really delivered some significant wins for evangelicals,” Lemons told Raw Story.
“That explains a lot of excitement.”
Abortion was among the most consequential examples. Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices during his first presidency, creating the conservative majority that later overturned the constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade.
Then came the promise that is causing problems
Foreign policy presents Trump with a different challenge.
Trump spent years criticizing prolonged American military engagements abroad and campaigned as a president who could keep the country out of unnecessary wars.
American military operations against Iran have therefore produced friction among parts of the evangelical coalition, particularly voters attracted to Trump’s anti-war or non-interventionist rhetoric.
“He really ran on ‘Isolationism of America’ … the next thing you know, you’re in a war,” Lemons said.
“There’s anger in the evangelical community.”
Lemons argues that concerns among some religious conservatives now resemble complaints heard elsewhere in the electorate, including questions about the war’s ultimate objective and its economic consequences.
“If anything, Iran discovered that they had more control than maybe they even thought they had,” Lemons said while describing the concerns he has heard.
“What’s the end game here?”
Trump has defended the conflict as necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and has repeatedly argued that American military action has made the United States safer. His administration has also used explicitly Christian language when defending aspects of the campaign.
Polling shows the relationship is under strain
Lemons is not relying solely on conversations with religious leaders.
Reuters/Ipsos polling from June found significant disagreement among evangelical Christians over both Iran and immigration.
Roughly half said the administration’s handling of the Iran war was inconsistent with their understanding of Christianity. Reuters reported that evangelical Christians remained an important component of Trump’s political base despite that dissatisfaction.
Trump’s approval among evangelicals stood at 52 percent in that survey, according to the poll cited by Raw Story.
Such numbers represent substantial dissatisfaction, but they do not demonstrate that evangelicals have collectively switched political allegiance or that they will support Democrats in November.
Attitudes toward Trump’s personal religiosity have also shifted.
Pew Research Center found in April that only 5 percent of white evangelical Protestants considered Trump “very religious.” Still, white evangelicals remained more likely than other major religious groups to describe him as at least somewhat religious.
Iran tests a remarkably durable alliance
Political disagreements between Trump and evangelical voters are hardly unprecedented.
The durability of their relationship has repeatedly rested on policy rather than assessments of Trump’s personal religious devotion.
Lemons’ research argues that evangelical leaders played an important role in overcoming skepticism toward Trump before the 2016 election. His work examines a closed-door meeting that year where religious leaders questioned the candidate about issues important to their communities.
Trump subsequently received overwhelming support from white born-again and evangelical Christians.
That relationship remained central to his coalition in 2020 and again during his return to the White House in 2024.
Trump’s second presidency has therefore created an unusual political test.
Past disagreements could often be weighed against major conservative victories delivered by his administration.
War touches a different nerve.
Reuters reported earlier this year that evangelical leaders themselves were divided over the conflict, even as some prominent pastors amplified Trump’s religious framing of military action against Iran.
