One of the big surprises of 2016 is the extent of evangelical support for Donald Trump. As I mentioned several weeks ago, judging by historical precedents, evangelicals might well have divided their support among a number of candidates who spoke persuasively about their Christian faith, including Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and the now-defunct Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, and Jeb Bush. Nevertheless, in many early primaries, Trump attracted a plurality of the Republican evangelical vote.
This past Tuesday, things were more mixed. Trump nearly won an outright majority of the evangelical vote in Florida, but Ted Cruz out-performed him among such self-identified voters in Missouri (by quite a bit), Illinois (very narrowly), and North Carolina (even more narrowly). Kasich narrowly carried the evangelical vote in Ohio.
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