Donald Trump has been divorced twice and bragged about having affairs with married women. He previously supported abortion rights. He regularly uses obscene language and insults his political opponents. He’s even botched Bible verses on the stump.
And yet according to one poll, the Republican presidential front-runner holds an advantage of nearly 2-to-1 among evangelicals—the group that would presumably put the biggest emphasis on moral issues—in South Carolina, where born-again Christians accounted for 65 percent of the GOP primary electorate in 2012.
There isn’t a universal theory as to why the bombastic reality-TV star has emerged as the top choice of white evangelicals both nationally and in the critical third Republican nominating state. Christian conservatives around the country and political operatives in South Carolina say evangelicals, who are just as fed up with the status quo in Washington as anyone, are drawn to Trump’s strongman image and no-gray-areas view of the world—even if his values don’t completely align with their own. “It’s just such a bizarre year,” said Oran Smith, the president of the Palmetto Family Council.
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