Tensions with evangelicals threaten Trump White House bid

Published

2 years ago

January 21, 2023

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Tensions between Donald Trump and evangelical leaders have spilled into public view, posing a potential threat to the former president’s election chances in 2024.

In an interview earlier this week, Trump said evangelical leaders are showing “signs of disloyalty” because they have yet to endorse his third presidential bid.

The comments highlighted the changing dynamic in GOP politics as the leaders of one of Trump’s most supportive demographics appear to distance themselves from the former president.

“It’s going to make these next few months uncomfortable for evangelical leaders because they’re going to have to, in essence, answer that question: Are you for Trump or are you not?” said David Brody, the chief political analyst at the Christian Broadcasting Network, who conducted the interview with Trump.

Trump’s comments come after influential evangelical pastor Robert Jeffress interviewed former Vice President Mike Pence, who is also evangelical, on stage at First Baptist Church in Dallas last week.

Pence is a potential 2024 Trump rival and Jeffress is a longtime supporter of Trump but has notably held off on endorsing him ahead of next year’s presidential election.

But in an interview with The Hill on Friday, Jeffress said he believes the former president will be the GOP presidential nominee in 2024 and that his decision to hold off on endorsing the president is “just a matter of timing.”

“I just don’t see a need to make an official endorsement two years out,” Jeffress said.

“Just let me cut to the chase,” he said. “I think President Trump is the presumptive nominee for 2024. I expect he will be the nominee in 2024 and I believe he’ll be the next president of the United States.”

However, Jeffress said that if Pence decides to run in 2024 he will be “a strong contender.”

White, evangelical Protestants played a key role in Trump’s coalition in 2016 and 2020 and have historically been a loyal Republican voting bloc. According to Pew Research, 84 percent of white, evangelical Protestants voted for Trump in 2020, while 77 percent voted for him in 2016.

The conservative voting bloc was drawn to Trump for his stances on issues like abortion and immigration. Trump, who appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices, has largely been credited for setting in motion the overturning of Roe v. Wade — one of his key campaign promises.

“He’s very much action-oriented and so therefore if he made promises and he delivered on those promises, which he did for four years, he’s going to say ‘well, what’s the problem here?’” Brody said.

While notable group leaders are choosing to wait to endorse the former president — despite him delivering on those promises — many are now wondering if it’s a signal that Trump’s support is softening among evangelicals ahead of the 2024 Republican primary.

“I think Trump is not helping himself here,” said Robert Jones, founder of the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute. “Trump did not really gain the votes of white evangelicals through white evangelical leaders in 2016.”

Jeffress publicly broke with Russell Moore, the-then president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, over Trump in 2016. Moore has been a vocal critic of the then-GOP candidate, while Jeffress embraced him.

“If you had just listened to evangelical leaders, you would have thought there was a great divide in the evangelical community on this,” Jones continued. “Of course when it came time to vote in primaries, the rank and file of white evangelicals lined up quite handily behind Trump.”

“There was never a divide on the ground in the way there was among evangelical leaders,” he said. “I think Trump himself may misunderstand the dynamics that evangelicals were never waiting on their leaders to tell them who to vote for.”

Brody said that broadly evangelical leaders and voters also have not been turned off by the controversies that have dogged Trump for decades, arguing that they always knew what they were signing up for.

“If chaos was there before — and it was — and chaos was here now, what has changed? Nothing has changed,” Brody said.

There is a trend in some early polls showing Trump’s support wavering among Republican voters as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) gains traction. Forty-nine percent of Republican primary voters said they would support the former president in 2024 and 54 percent of evangelical voters said they planned on supporting him in his third bid, according to a New York Times-Sienna College poll released in October ahead of the midterm elections.

However, polling this week showed Trump running ahead of DeSantis. A new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released on Friday showed Trump leading DeSantis 48 percent to 28 percent. Meanwhile, a Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday showed Trump leading DeSantis 48 percent to 31 percent.

But if multiple Republican contenders jump into the primary, which is likely to happen, evangelical support could be divvied up. The five hardest hits from a judge’s scathing ruling against former President Trump Migrant shot, injured by Texas National Guard soldier: report

“Evangelicals are going to have a decision to make and Trump will probably end up losing some of that support,” Brody said.

And experts say they doubt that Trump’s support among evangelical voters themselves will suffer drastically anytime soon.

“When you look at Trump’s favorability numbers, they have moved down a bit since he was in office among white evangelicals but not very much,” Jones said. “To me, unless the numbers look significantly worse than they did in 2016 for him, I would not count him out, and they do not.”

World

Mark Carney’s Liberal Party wins Canada election, according to Canadian broadcasters

Published

18 mins ago

April 29, 2025

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Mark Carney's Liberal Party wins Canada election, according to Canadian broadcasters

Mark Carney’s Liberal Party has won the election in Canada, according to Canadian broadcasters, but it is too soon to say whether they will form a majority government.

Mr Carney, who took over as prime minister after Justin Trudeau stepped down earlier this year, has beaten the leader of the Conservative Party Pierre Poilievre, according to CBC and CTV News projections.

However, it is too soon to say whether the Liberals will form a majority government, they added. The party has not yet secured the 172 electoral districts it needs for a majority.

The election initially appeared to be a clear-cut race for the opposition Conservatives, who were enjoying a double-digit lead over the Liberals before Mr Trudeau resigned, and an intervention by Donald Trump led to a surge in support for Mr Carney’s party.

Mr Trump has repeatedly called for Canada to become the 51st US state since he was elected president for a second time and has imposed sweeping tariffs on Canada.

Mr Carney has vowed to take a tougher approach with Washington over its tariffs and has said Canada will need to spend billions to reduce its reliance on the US.

If Mr Carney’s party only captures a minority of the House’s 343 seats, he will be forced to negotiate with other parties in order to stay in power.

Such minority governments rarely last longer than two-and-a-half years in Canada.

Canadians went to the polls after 11 people were killed in a deadly attack at a Vancouver street fair over the weekend that led to the suspension of campaigning for several hours.

Police have ruled out terrorism and said the suspect is a local man with a history of mental health issues.

Mr Carney previously ran Canada’s central bank and later became the first non-Briton to become governor of the Bank of England.

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Sports

Lightning’s Hagel leaves G4 loss after high hit

Published

26 mins ago

April 29, 2025

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Lightning's Hagel leaves G4 loss after high hit

Greg Wyshynski

Apr 28, 2025, 09:30 PM ET

Tampa Bay Lightning forward Brandon Hagel left his team’s 4-2 loss to the host Florida Panthers in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference first-round series on Monday night after a high hit from defenseman Aaron Ekblad that wasn’t penalized.

With less than 9 minutes left in the second period, Hagel played the puck out of the Tampa Bay zone near the boards. Ekblad skated in on him and delivered a hit with his right forearm that made contact with Hagel’s head, shoving him down in the process.

The back of Hagel’s head hit the ice. He was pulled from the game for concussions concerns. Ekblad did not receive a penalty on the play.

The Lightning trailed the Panthers 1-0 at the time of the hit, but Mitchell Chaffee and Erik Cernak scored two goals in 11 seconds after Hagel left the game to give Tampa Bay a 2-1 lead. When the teams returned for the third period, Hagel was not on the bench.

The Panthers rallied in the third, as Ekblad, Seth Jones and Carter Verhaeghe scored to give Florida a 3-1 series lead. Game 5 is in Tampa on Wednesday.

Game 4 saw Hagel return to the Tampa Bay lineup after he served a one-game suspension for interference on Florida captain Aleksander Barkov in Game 2. The NHL ruled the Barkov wasn’t eligible to be hit and that Hagel made head contact with him. It was the first suspension of this career.

Hagel was one of the best two-way wingers in the league this season, with 35 goals and 55 assists in 82 games for the Lightning.

Sports

Nimmo matches Mets franchise record with 9 RBIs

Published

47 mins ago

April 29, 2025

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Nimmo matches Mets franchise record with 9 RBIs

ESPN News Services

Apr 28, 2025, 08:07 PM ET

WASHINGTON — Brandon Nimmo hit a grand slam and matched a franchise record with nine RBIs, helping the New York Mets past the Washington Nationals in a 19-5 rout on Monday.

Nimmo also hit a three-run drive in his seventh career multihomer game. The 32-year-old outfielder had four hits and scored four times after beginning the day with a .192 batting average.

All of Nimmo’s damage came in a three-inning span. According to ESPN Research, he became only the third player to pull off that feat in that time frame since the RBI became an official stat in 1920.

The win came a day after New York let a six-run lead slip in an 8-7 loss to the Nationals. The matinee bounce-back earned the club split of the four-game series. The Mets have won nine of 11 overall to improve to a major league-best 20-9.

“Really proud of the guys for flushing yesterday, coming back today and really going out there and work on all sides of the ball,” Nimmo said. “It was really fun to play today.”

Jeff McNeil and Mark Vientos also homered for New York, which finished with 21 hits. Vientos connected for a three-run drive against Washington infielder Amed Rosario in the ninth.

James Wood and Nathaniel Lowe homered for Washington in the eighth.

The Mets had a 3-0 lead when Colin Poche replaced Nationals starter Trevor Williams (1-3) with two on in the sixth. Nimmo greeted the left-hander by ripping a 2-0 fastball deep to right-center.

An inning later, the Mets had the bases loaded when Nimmo sent Cole Henry‘s fastball into the right-field seats for his second career grand slam.

Nimmo added a two-run double in the eighth to tie the franchise record for RBIs set by Carlos Delgado in the first game of a doubleheader against the New York Yankees on June 27, 2008.

“Tomorrow is a new day as well,” Nimmo said, quickly turning the page from the win. “And we’re just going to have to take it a day at a time, and treat it like it is its own.”

McNeil, who made his season debut Friday after sitting out 25 games because of a right oblique strain, hit the first pitch of the fifth deep to right for his first home run of the year.

“One hundred percent,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said, when asked if McNeil’s start has been good to see. “When you see him pulling the ball like that, and going deep? That’s a good sign. It’s good to see him continue with that approach.”

Griffin Canning (4-1) pitched five innings of four-hit ball for New York. He has won four consecutive starts for the first time in his six-season career.

Jose Urena earned his first save of the season. He gave up five runs in three innings in his Mets debut.

Williams yielded five runs in a season-high 5⅓ innings.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.