Evangelicals See Donald Trump as Man of Conviction, if Not Faith

Trump emphasized his persistence to participate for evangelical support with a high-profile speech Monday at Liberty University, which was founded by the late Jerry Falwell Sr., a leading conservative Southern Baptist pastor who also played a key role in launching the Moral Majority in the late 1970s.

Cruz, who runs best among evangelicals, is pursuing voters through traditional means: by emphasizing his conservative commitment on social issues from abortion to gay marriage and by copiously organizing through churches and other religious networks such as homeschooling families.

Trump’s strength among working-class evangelical Christians is helping him to closely press Cruz in Iowa, a state whose Republican caucus has usually favored the candidate that evangelicals prefer. The same dynamic could threaten Cruz in the Southern states that he is counting on to boost his candidacy in early March. Continued Trump strength among blue collar evangelicals would also frame Mid-western states with many of those voters, including Ohio, Missouri, and Wisconsin, as potentially pivotal showdowns between the two men.

According to a poll, conducted by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, solid majorities across the board said it was extremely or very important for the U.S. to uphold religious freedom in general, but the percentages varied dramatically when respondents were asked about specific faiths.

In a survey, 82 percent said religious liberty protections were important for Christians, compared with 61 percent who said the same for Muslims. About 70 percent said preserving Jews’ religious freedom was important, while 67 percent said Mormons’ freedoms needed protection. The findings appalled several local Christian leaders.

“Am I a Bible toter that gets out and preaches on the side of the street and tries to convert everybody? No,” said Mr. Arning, 62, who calls himself an evangelical voter. He said he believed that Mr. Trump was “a Christian man,” and that was good enough.

Mr. Trump may not be as spiritually minded as former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, who was a Southern Baptist minister, “but I think his values are very much the same,” Mr. Arning said.

A New York Times/CBS News poll last week indicated that Mr. Trump, a Presbyterian, dominating the field with 42 percent of evangelical voters; Mr. Cruz was second with 25 percent. In dozens of interviews with evangelical voters in 16 states, from every region of the country outside the Northeast, those supporting Mr. Trump sounded a familiar refrain: that his heart was in the right place that his intentions for the country were pure, that he alone was capable of delivering to a troubled country salvation in the here and now.

“He is the only one who can pull us back from the abyss,” said John Juvenal, 67, a lifelong Republican and retired police officer from Oklahoma City.

Strong support among conservative Christians could help Mr. Trump regain his lead in Iowa, where Mr. Cruz has pulled ahead in the polls. And Mr. Trump is making an effort to convert them. On Sunday, he assured CNN that he had “a great relationship with God.”