Pew tracks how evangelicals came to pick Trump for president.
Donald Trump may not have gotten Ted Cruz’s endorsement last night. But today he picked up the endorsement of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.
“I am endorsing Donald J. Trump not only because of my apprehensions about Hillary Clinton and the damage she would inflict on this great country,” stated Dobson. “I am also supporting Mr. Trump because I believe he is the most capable candidate to lead the United States of America in this complicated hour.”
The qualifier on Clinton reflects the mixed feelings many evangelicals have on this year’s presidential picks.
More than 3 in 4 white evangelicals like Dobson are voting Trump this November, according to the Pew Research Center. However, it’s mostly a vote against Clinton, not in support of Trump himself:
Overall, about a third (36%) of evangelicals are voting for a candidate they like, while more than half (55%) are voting against the candidate they like the least.
That’s exactly what most evangelical leaders (very few of whom supported either Trump or Clinton when the election began) recommend.
When faced with two disagreeable candidates, 60 percent of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) board members polled last month said that Christians should vote for the candidate they dislike the least, while 28 percent said to vote for a third-party candidate and 12 percent said to not vote for that particular office.
“In their comments, some evangelical leaders suggested that voting for a third party candidate or abstaining for that office was futile or a vote for the winning ticket,” noted the NAE. “A minority, however, think these positions are worth considering.”
“How can I preach civic responsibility …
