After former President Donald Trump beaten With former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in New Hampshire on Tuesday, the GOP primary result many have been waiting for all along may soon be here.
“This breed has consolidated faster than any breed I can remember,” said Dan Darling, director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Christianity today. “That sounds a bit like an outgoing application.”
Haley survived a large number of presidential candidates, but after a second place in the Granite State, his outsider The campaign could soon end, political analysts believe.
“New Hampshire has a much more moderate and much less religious electorate than South Carolina, and she still couldn’t win,” said Kyle Kondik, an election analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “Ultimately, I think she needed to do better in New Hampshire to demonstrate broader appeal to the core Republican electorate.”
In New Hampshire, she too carried out well with college graduates and voters identifying as moderates and independents. But nearly 9 in 10 New Hampshire voters who consider themselves “very conservative” supported Trump, The Washington PostThe exit poll was found. And white evangelical Christians – about 20% of voters in the poll – voted for Trump by 70%.
Trump won support drawn from a strong majority of white evangelical voters in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, but his popularity has also increased ideological divisions within churches.
“Christians should prepare now for a really divisive and controversial election campaign,” Daniel Bennett, a political science professor at John Brown University, told CT.
Darling sees a greater weariness among the faithful when it comes to politics. In the coming year, he predicts there will be fewer conversations among Christians arguing about support for Trump, and more conversations “about how to conduct ourselves, how to do it well, and how to love our fellow Christians, even if we disagree about how we behave.” moving forward and elections.
After 2020, a solid minority of evangelicals (43%) said they thought evangelicals’ embrace of Trump had damaged the Church’s credibility, and a third said it made it more difficult to witness to others.
“I am deeply concerned about what Trump’s re-election would seem to justify and vindicate to some,” Michael Wear, a former faith adviser to the Obama administration and president of the Center for Christianity and Public Life, told CT. “He is running for the highest office in the land, and if he wins, it will have significant consequences for our nation and the world. »
Bennett also thinks that most evangelicals have they have made up their minds about Trump: “At this point, you’re either with him or you’re not. I doubt we’ll see many religious leaders “lining up” if he concludes his nomination; they might vote for him, but I wouldn’t expect a deluge of enthusiasm in the currently quiet corners of American evangelicalism.
Despite their appeals to faith, the rest of the Republican camp struggled to surpass the former president. Former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott cited Bible verses and adopted a pastoral tone — both failed to gain traction. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sought to run to Trump’s right — he fizzled after his runner-up finish in Iowa. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made a moral argument against Trump: He didn’t make it as far as Iowa.
Methodist Haley, meanwhile, has often remained lukewarm in her criticism of Trump, hoping not to alienate her rival’s supporters. So far, that strategy has kept her in the race, but not enough to threaten Trump’s front-runner status.
“This race is far from over,” Haley said Tuesday night, pledging to focus on South Carolina’s upcoming primary in February. “There are dozens of states left to go. And next is my sweet state of South Carolina.
But Trump is projected win there too. “Just a quick note for Nikki,” he said Tuesday, “she’s not going to win.”
High profile and a loyal Republican base are qualities that helped him in the primaries, although some see Trump’s weakness among moderate and independent voters as a problem for his general election campaign.
“If you look at him as an incumbent president, you have to be a little concerned,” Darling said, noting that Trump polled only about 50 percent of the vote in Iowa. “In a general election, Republicans will need all Republicans, and then some. You will need all Republican votes from all sides of the party. Additionally, you will need freelancers.
Yet while Joe Biden’s approval ratings lag, many recent polls putting Trump ahead of him in the general election.
Wear hopes that Christians can engage with this political cycle in a countercultural way. His last book, The spirit of our policyurges Christians to prioritize spiritual growth over political gains.
“We need to address the choices immediately before us, but we also need to say things and act in a way that is true and lasting beyond one presidential election cycle,” he said . “We can actively refuse to follow the logic of our toxic politics, which are based on fear, anger and insecurity, but instead deliver what we have to offer with joyful confidence. »
