White evangelical voters show steadfast support for Donald Trump’s presidency
By PETER SMITH
After Donald Trump gave his victory speech early Wednesday at the Palm Beach Convention Center, dozens of his supporters gathered in a lobby to sing “How Great Thou Art,” reciting from memory the words and harmonies of a classic hymn, popular among evangelical Christians.
It was a fitting coda to an election in which Trump once again won the support of about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christian voters, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters. That margin — among a group that represented about 20% of the total electorate — repeats similarly staggering margins of evangelical support that
Trump received in 2020.
Evangelicals said they believed Trump would implement their policy priorities on religious as well as general issues such as immigration and the economy. But critics fear Trump’s administration will implement Christian nationalist policies that will give Christianity a privileged status in public life, rather than maintaining a separation of church and state and treating people of all beliefs equally.