Iowa's Republican caucus looks to be a battle between Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), and both are heavily courting the evangelical Christian voters who helped Rick Santorum win the first-in-the-nation vote in 2012 and Mike Huckabee triumph in 2008. Cruz, a Baptist whose father is a fire-and-brimstone preacher, speaks Christianity more fluently and frequently than Trump, but that won't necessarily translate into evangelical votes. "Some say they feel manipulated by blunt appeals to their Christian identity," reports NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben, and "many evangelical voters simply aren't first and foremost religious voters."
"I don't give support simply by quoting the Bible. I want to see it lived out in the policy," John Lee, a pastor in conservative Sioux Center, tells NPR. "I'm not electing a pastor in chief. I'm electing a commander in chief."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
How global conflicts are reshaping flight pathsUnder the Radar Airlines are having to take longer and convoluted routes to avoid conflict zones
-
Zohran Mamdani: the young progressive likely to be New York City's next mayorIn The Spotlight The policies and experience that led to his meteoric rise
-
The best film reboots of all timeThe Week Recommends Creativity and imagination are often required to breathe fresh life into old material
-
Southern Baptists endorse gay marriage banSpeed Read The largest US Protestant denomination voted to ban same-sex marriage and pornography at their national meeting
-
Prevost elected first US pope, becomes Leo XIVspeed read Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost is a Chicago native who spent decades living in Peru
-
Pope Francis dies at 88Speed Read 'How much contempt is stirred up at times toward the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants,' Pope Francis wrote in his final living message
-
Pope returns to Vatican after long hospital staySpeed Read Pope Francis entered the hospital on Feb. 14 and battled double pneumonia
-
Texas megachurch founder charged with sex crimesSpeed Read Robert Morris, former spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump, is accused of sexually abusing a child
-
Pope Francis suffers setback with respiratory episodesSpeed Read The 88-year-old pope continues to battle pneumonia
-
US Christianity's long decline has halted, Pew findsSpeed Read 62% of Americans call themselves Christian, a population that has been 'relatively stable' for the past five years
-
Pope Francis hospitalized with 'complex' illnessSpeed Read The Vatican says their leader has a respiratory infection, raising new concerns about his health
