Former President Donald Trump is crushing it among evangelical voters, according to CNN’s entrance polling as the Iowa caucuses kick-off.
Early entrance polling presented by CNN found Trump seeing support from 55 percent of evangelicals. That is more than double the 24 percent garnered by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and more than four times former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s 12 percent support among this group.
According to the survey, anti-woke businessman Vivek Ramaswamy garnered eight percent of support from evangelicals:
According to early entrance polls from @CNN, 55% of White evangelical Christians are supporting Donald Trump in the Iowa caucuses.#IowaCaucus pic.twitter.com/Q3gkpzslMB
— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) January 16, 2024
Similarly, an entrance poll from Fox News has Trump crushing it among evangelicals with 60 percent support:
Fox News voter analysis.
60% of evangelicals are going to Trump.
Ron's push for Evangelicals hasn't panned out.
— David D. Chapman (@davidchapman141) January 16, 2024
This reality coincides with the final NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll released ahead of the Iowa caucuses, which found Trump leading, with 51 percent of evangelical Christians choosing the former president as their first choice candidate.
Interestingly, Trump’s strong support among evangelicals flies in the face of remarks made by Trump-rival former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who asserted in 2023 that evangelicals wanted to move away from Trump.
“While there’s a regard for what happened during his [Trump’s] administration, particularly the evangelical base is saying, let’s have someone that brings out the goodness of America and not appeals to our worst instincts,” Hutchinson said during a February 2023 appearance on Your World.
Evidently, that is not the case.
The CNN poll did not appear to show Hutchinson garnering any support among evangelicals.
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