Trump, DeSantis vie for evangelical vote in D.C. face-off
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[September 16, 2023]
By Gram Slattery and James Oliphant
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Florida
Governor Ron DeSantis made their cases to evangelical voters who
gathered in Washington for a pair of events on Friday, seeking an edge
with a voting bloc likely to play a pivotal role in selecting a 2024
presidential nominee.
The pressure was all on DeSantis, who trails Trump in the Republican
presidential primary by nearly 40 percentage points in most opinion
polls, including among evangelical voters.
Both candidates spoke at a pair of national summits convened by the
Concerned Women of America and the Family Research Council, evangelical
advocacy groups that support laws restricting abortion among other
issues.
At the Family Research Council event, DeSantis defended allowing
churches to remain open in Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing
cheers from the ballroom crowd.
"We protected our religious institutions when so many states were
running roughshod over people's rights to practice their faith in full,"
he said.
DeSantis also talked up Florida's law that bans abortion at six weeks,
one of the most restrictive in the nation. "We have stood up," he said.
Trump also addressed abortion at the council event, saying he supports
bans with exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the
mother, a position that was received coolly by the crowd.
Trump said a more restrictive position on abortion damages Republicans
in elections.
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"They lost a lot of elections, and we can't let that happen," he said.
"Many politicians who are pro-life do not know how to properly discuss
the topic."
Longtime president of the council, Tony Perkins, a prominent evangelical
leader, did not endorse Trump during his 2016 campaign and has yet to
endorse a candidate this time around. But introducing Trump, he praised
him as "a man who fights for what he believes in."
Even with Trump's sobering talk on abortion, there was little sign he
has lost his grip on social conservatives. He received a thunderous
ovation from the crowd.
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Trump holds a roughly 35 percentage-point lead over DeSantis and Vivek
Ramaswamy among evangelical Christians, according to a Reuters/Ipsos
poll that closed on Thursday.
Those voters have stood by the twice-divorced Trump even as he rarely
invokes scripture or speaks with an evangelical bent, and as he has
faced a series of charges involving attempts to overturn the 2020
presidential election and a scheme to pay "hush money" to a porn star.
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![](../images/091623PIX/news_q79.jpg)
Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis
arrives to address the Concerned Women for America Legislative
Action Committee’s (CWALAC) 2023 Leadership Summit in Washington,
U.S., September 15, 2023. REUTERS/Leah Millis
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Many Christian activists credit him for helping to bring an end to
nationwide abortion rights by appointing three conservative justices
to the U.S. Supreme Court, which last year overturned the landmark
1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Robert Goss, 77, a retired law-enforcement officer from Locust Dale,
Virginia, was awaiting Trump and DeSantis at the council event,
saying he was still deciding which candidate to support.
Goss said he could be persuaded to vote for Trump again, but "he's
got to get past all the legal things. And I just don't want four
more years of nothing but fighting and bickering. We want to get
something done."
Hannah Brusven, 25, a political organizer from Idaho who attended
the women's event in Washington, said she was initially interested
in DeSantis, but she had turned back to Trump.
"I really was thinking DeSantis would be a perfect person because
he's young, he's vibrant. He could have been a new JFK," Brusven
said, referring to popular Democratic President John F. Kennedy.
"But he wasn't."
DeSantis' advisers are betting he can eat into Trump's significant
polling lead by outperforming among devout Christians, especially
those who are affluent and well-educated, according to several
people familiar with his strategy.
That could be a major factor in the state of Iowa, where white
evangelical voters are expected to turn out in large numbers in the
first 2024 Republican nominating contest four months away.
On Thursday, DeSantis unveiled a "Faith and Family Coalition" of
more than 70 faith leaders backing him in Iowa, New Hampshire and
South Carolina, all early voting states.
DeSantis and several other Republican primary contenders are due to
speak at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition's fall banquet on
Saturday in Des Moines, another major gathering of religious
conservatives.
Trump, who has a rocky relationship with some key political figures
in Iowa, will not attend.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery and James Oliphant; Additional reporting
by Jason Lange; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Howard Goller, Kim
Coghill and Tom Hogue)
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