Iowa evangelicals could play an unfamiliar role in 2016: Putting down an insurgent Republican candidacy rather than boosting one. This is a crucial demographic in the country’s first nominating contest. According to the 2012 entrance polls, 57 percent of last time’s caucus-goers were evangelicals or born-again Christians.
Typically, these Iowa voters have helped insurgencies. In 1988, Pat Robertson ran ahead of George H.W. Bush in all 99 counties. Pat Buchanan barely lost the state to Bob Dole in 1996, setting him up for victory in New Hampshire. In 2008 and 2012, Iowa evangelicals launched Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum from low single digits to top-tier status.
The one exception is when these socially conservative Iowans delivered the caucuses to George W. Bush in 2000, a marriage of the Christian right and the Republican establishment that proved crucial to his winning candidacy. Even then, perennial candidate Alan Keyes finished a surprisingly strong third with 14 percent of the vote, much of it coming from evangelicals.
Republicans complain the caucuses tend to advance conservative candidates with little appeal to non-evangelicals and who lack the fundraising ability or campaign infrastructure to really go the distance against establishment candidates. Could things be different this time?
Iowa is already Donald Trump’s weakest early state. His lead in the late November RealClearPolitics polling average there is only 4.7 percentage points, though he did break 30 percent in a CBS/YouGov poll. In October, Trump briefly lost his lead to Ben Carson.
Polling suggests Trump’s relative vulnerability in Iowa stems from evangelicals viewing other candidates, such as Carson, as more trustworthy and more faithful Christians. Trump has taken to noting his Presbyterian faith on the stump (sometimes contrasting it with Carson’s Seventh-Day Adventist Church and calling it more mainstream) and citing the Bible as his favorite book.
A Trump Iowa loss would disrupt the early state juggernaut the billionaire is counting on to keep the field from easily coalescing around an alternative candidate. What if someone with experience in elected office rises there? The CBS/YouGov poll that showed Trump regaining a double-digit lead in Iowa also found Ted Cruz slipping past Carson for second place.
One of Cruz’s Senate colleagues, Marco Rubio, may also be positioned to make an Iowa play. After the Paris attacks, conservative activists and likely caucus-goers in the state have begun to voice doubts about Carson’s lack of foreign-policy experience, opening the door to the two senators who round out the top four in most Iowa polling. “This is THE Iowa fight to watch,” said Republican consultant Rick Wilson, who is backing Rubio.
Cruz has the support of influential Iowa radio host Steve Deace and Rep. Steve King. “I think Marco meets all the evangelical tests — strongly pro-life, pro-family — and also has an X-factor charisma and ‘is the guy who can win’ factor” against Hillary Clinton, Wilson said.
“Social conservatives in Iowa and throughout the nation want someone who is first and foremost insistent on social issues,” said Huckabee communications director Alice Stewart, “but they’re not one-issue voters. They care about national security like everyone else.”
“I think the shifting has been going on in Iowa for a while,” said Eagle Forum president Ed Martin, expressing skepticism about some of the anecdotal reporting. He adds that Rubio has a “vested interest” in the media framing the caucuses as a national-security referendum.
“It’s infuriating the establishment that people are gravitating toward candidates who won’t play establishment games.”
In previous elections, Cruz or even Rubio might be viewed as insurgents themselves. But elected officials have languished this year, a trend that might only reverse itself if Iowans see an opportunity to advance a conservative who can win.
“Iowans are smart,” Stewart said. “They won’t be swayed by the liberal media or glitzy ads.”
