It is true that Carson, who has made opposing abortion rights a central feature of his campaign, does do well with white evangelical Protestants, pulling 24 percent of their support in the Post-ABC poll. Carson has also been open — and by his standards, almost effusive — about the role that his faith played in his seemingly proverbial-but-certainly-real rags-to-riches story.

But then consider this: Trump, a man whom Carson said seems to practice a kind of faith that requires no humility, is actually ahead with Republican evangelicals, at 32 percent. And even in a Monmouth University poll of likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers a few weeks back — a poll that showed a tight Trump-Carson race — Carson posted 29 percent support among Iowa evangelicals to Trump’s 23. That gap falls well within the poll’s margin of error (plus or minus 4.9 percent).

So any assertions that Carson’s ascendancy is driven in some large measure by evangelicals isn’t well-founded. His share of that vote among them is pretty much on-par with his overall share of the vote.