Polling figures from Monmouth University, released in May, do not support that theory, but snapshots here and there seem to indicate DeSantis could be an alternative conservative candidate for people of faith.
Monmouth polling asked Republican voters to consider a Trump-DeSantis head-to-head matchup and sorted the data into 11 different categories. In those figures, 28% percent of professed Evangelicals preferred Trump to DeSantis.
In other polling, Trump led DeSantis in every category except Republican voters who are also college graduates. In nine of the other 10 categories, he led by at least 14% each time.
But Trump’s best scores came after his April indictment by a New York grand jury on charges of paying hush money to cover up a relationship with a former porn star. He’s been indicted twice more since then.
Trump in January lashed out at evangelical leaders who did not immediately endorse his 2024 candidacy, calling it an act of “disloyalty” in a CNN video.
Has Trump wavered as a pro-life president?
More recently, Trump has been somewhat vague on how far he might go to protect unborn lives as he criticized the Florida heartbeat bill signed by DeSantis.
“If you look at what DeSantis did, a lot of people don’t even know if he knew what he was doing, but he signed six weeks, and many people within the pro-Life movement feel that was too harsh,” Trump claimed in an interview with The Messenger.
A misstep here or there by Trump, combined with the success DeSantis’ campaign says their candidate is having in a grassroots state-by-state effort, could chip away at Trump’s support among Evangelicals.
Bob Vander Plaats, whose Christian group The Family Leader sponsored Tucker Carlson’s one-one-one interviews with GOP candidates in July as part of The Family Leadership Summit, shared on America Family Radio a story of a church visit with DeSantis and his wife Casey in Iowa.
“We went out into the lobby just saying we'd shake a few hands and then honestly get out of there, and people just started forming up lines to meet and get pictures with him,” said Vander Plaats, adding that he told his wife, “If that’s an indication of the attraction he has to the typical Iowa caucus voter things could go very well for him.”
The Iowa caucuses will kick off the primary season Jan. 15.
Vander Platts told show host Jenna Ellis he believes DeSantis, who is Catholic, has a “very authentic” faith. “I think his faith does motivate and drive him,” Vander Plaats said.
DeSantis was a participant in The Family Leader sitdown with Carlson. Trump was not.
Vander Plaats said The Family Leader event was designed to “reveal character” among the candidates.
“It’s who they are as a person," he said. "Can we trust them? Are they prepared to do the job, and then their chemistry, is this their Esther moment? Can they win in 2024 as God called them at this time?”
Elsewhere in the radio interview, Vander Plaats stressed the importance of a candidate having the Evangelicals in his or her corner.
“There’s no doubt the evangelical vote is crucial not only in the Iowa caucuses but in the Republican primary," Vander Plaats, a veteran of GOP politics, insisted. "Then as Donald Trump would tell you, or George W. Bush would tell you or anybody else, it's crucial to win the presidency in a general election."
Bush received 78% of the evangelical vote in 2004, a 10-point increase from the 2000 race when he moved from statehouse to White House as DeSantis is attempting to do.
Evangelicals aside, DeSantis is struggling in straight polling numbers. Morning Consult’s Aug. 4-6 data from potential Republican primary voters shows Trump with 59% followed by DeSantis with 16% and Vivek Ramaswamy with 8%.
DeSantis has now replaced campaign manager Generra Peck with James Uthmeier, who previously served as his chief of staff in Tallahassee. That marked the second major shake-up of the campaign. In July, DeSantis laid off 38 staff members.
The key for voters to remember, in Iowa or anywhere else, Vander Plaats concluded, is that God can work through any candidate for His on good purposes.
“If you go through Scripture," the evangelical leader said, "God has used a lot of people, those who were with Him and those who weren’t necessarily with Him, to advance His will.”
