The evangelical voter split #TrumpvsCruzinthepews

Though Cruz led big among col­lege-edu­cated evan­gel­ic­als in the latest Quin­nipi­ac Iowa sur­vey, the poll placed Trump ahead of Cruz by 32 per­cent to 30 per­cent among evan­gel­ic­als without a col­lege de­gree. The NBC/WSJ/Mar­ist Poll in Iowa showed Cruz still lead­ing Trump among blue-col­lar evan­gel­ic­als, but with a much nar­row­er ad­vant­age (nine per­cent­age points) than among their col­lege-edu­cated coun­ter­parts (23 points).

Craig Robin­son, founder of The Iowa Re­pub­lic­an web­site and former polit­ic­al dir­ect­or for the state GOP, said Trump’s strength with these work­ing-class evan­gel­ic­als “doesn’t sur­prise me at all. He def­in­itely has this ap­peal to the hard-work­ing blue-col­lar little guy.” As for Cruz, Robin­son ad­ded, “I don’t think he’s a lock at all” for these voters.

Work­ing-class evan­gel­ic­als rep­res­ent a po­ten­tially pivotal block not only in the South, but also across key Mid­west­ern battle­grounds that also vote in early March. In 2012, non­col­lege evan­gel­ic­als cast more than one-third of the Re­pub­lic­an bal­lots in South Car­o­lina and Geor­gia, al­most ex­actly one-third in Ohio, and about one-fourth in Flor­ida, Illinois, and Michigan, the exit poll fig­ures show. They will also carry sig­ni­fic­ant weight in oth­er South­ern and heart­land states like Ten­ness­ee, Arkan­sas, Ok­lahoma, Mis­sis­sippi, Mis­souri, Wis­con­sin, and Kan­sas.

Cruz has cour­ted these voters partly by mov­ing closer to Trump’s po­s­i­tions on im­mig­ra­tion and trade. But mostly Cruz is bet­ting on his as­sidu­ous or­gan­iz­ing through re­li­gious net­works. His “Faith and Re­li­gious Liberty Co­ali­tion” has at­trac­ted en­dorse­ments from some 400 con­ser­vat­ive re­li­gious lead­ers, in­clud­ing prom­in­ent na­tion­al fig­ures such as Fo­cus on the Fam­ily founder James Dob­son and Bob Vander Plaats, pres­id­ent of the Iowa Fam­ily Lead­er. And, like San­tor­um and Mike Hucka­bee be­fore him, Cruz has worked dog­gedly to at­tract homeschool­ing fam­il­ies. In South Car­o­lina, “Cruz is work­ing the evan­gel­ic­al pas­tors and get­ting them en­gaged, and he is do­ing that pretty ef­fect­ively,” says Or­an P. Smith, pres­id­ent of the Pal­metto Fam­ily Coun­cil, a lead­ing so­cial con­ser­vat­ive group there.

Many ob­serv­ers be­lieve this or­gan­iz­ing—and Cruz’s un­waver­ingly con­ser­vat­ive re­cord on so­cial is­sues such as gay mar­riage—has provided him a clear edge with evan­gel­ic­als for whom cul­tur­al is­sues and per­son­al val­ues are para­mount. Den­nis Googe, a small busi­ness own­er from Rock Hill, South Car­o­lina, who at­ten­ded Don­ald Trump’s re­cent rally there, is one of them. Though Googe said he ad­mired Trump, he planned to vote for Cruz “be­cause he is sol­id in his be­lief against abor­tion and ho­mo­sexu­al and les­bi­an mar­riage, and Mr. Trump some­times comes across as he may not be.” 

Cruz’s re­cent at­tacks on Trump for em­body­ing “New York val­ues” may help the sen­at­or ce­ment oth­er evan­gel­ic­als like Googe torn between their ad­mir­a­tion for Trump’s ar­dor and their “Chris­ti­an con­vic­tions,” as Googe puts it. Trump gave Cruz an as­sist in that ef­fort by mangling a bible verse dur­ing his Liberty speech on Monday.

Cruz’s prob­lem, many ana­lysts say, is that even many evan­gel­ic­als this year may find Trump’s anti-es­tab­lish­ment, anti-im­mig­rant, anti-trade ar­gu­ments more com­pel­ling than so­cial is­sues. The evan­gel­ic­als drawn to Trump “are a dif­fer­ent class of voters,” says John Brabend­er, the chief strategist in 2012 for San­tor­um. “My im­pres­sion is they are first and fore­most driv­en by who they are as far as oc­cu­pa­tion, in­come, life­style, than wheth­er they are evan­gel­ic­al or not.” 

Watch­ing from South Car­o­lina, Smith agrees that Cruz may find it more dif­fi­cult than many ex­pect to dis­lodge Trump from his beach­head among evan­gel­ic­als, es­pe­cially work­ing-class ones.

Tellingly, Smith says, the sin­cer­ity of Trump’s re­li­gious faith is draw­ing much less dis­cus­sion than de­bates about Rom­ney’s Mor­mon re­li­gion did in 2012. “There is not a lot of ob­ses­sion among blue-col­lar evan­gel­ic­als with minor points of theo­logy,” Smith says. “Those things go to the mar­gins when people feel des­per­ate and the Re­pub­lic­an primary elect­or­ate feels to me a little des­per­ate right now.”