Iowa’s evangelical leaders seeking an alternative to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney can’t agree on another, more conservative candidate, opening the door for Romney to score big in the state’s Jan. 3 caucuses.
With just five weeks until Iowans cast the first votes of the 2012 presidential campaign, evangelical Christians are split on a handful of candidates and even the state’s most prominent social conservatives can’t make up their minds.
Top evangelical activists now worry that their indecision will undercut their influence in the caucuses and rob them of the opportunity to select a conservative challenger, an “anti-Romney,” to face President Obama next fall.
“I don’t think there has ever been this kind of split among evangelicals this close to the caucuses,” said Dennis J. Goldford, a Drake University political science professor and author of “The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of a Media Event.”
Evangelicals have historically enjoyed increased clout in Iowa’s Republican caucuses, since Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses force presidential candidates to spend considerable time campaigning for their support.
“Evangelicals are still, I think, the tail that wags the dog among Iowa Republicans,” Goldford said. “They are not a majority overall, but they punch above their weight in actual political participation because of their enthusiasm and intensity.”
Iowa’s evangelicals, who accounted for 60 percent of all caucus-goers, coalesced around former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2008, helping him carry the state. Now, they are unsure who to support and fear that their influence in the caucuses may suffer as a result.
The Family Leader, a prominent Iowa group of social conservatives, last week tried to unite the Hawkeye State’s evangelicals together behind a single candidate. But the effort yielded no endorsement, and at least one participant has since announced he will not endorse anyone.
Despite “efforts by the conservative voters in Iowa to come to some general consensus about who should be the GOP nominee … I believe that it is the role of our members and supporters to endorse the candidate of their choice,” said Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition.
The Family Leader has so far narrowed its list of acceptable candidates to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Conservatives are reluctant to back Romney, the race’s front-runner, because they question the former Massachusetts governor’s commitment to conservative principles.
Businessman Herman Cain was recently dropped from consideration after several women leveled sexual harassment allegations against him.
Gingrich has been surging in the polls recently, but some religious voters are uncomfortable with his past personal indiscretions, including two divorces, and his support for abortions in rape cases.
Bachmann and Santorum boast solid socially conservative credentials without Gingrich’s baggage, but both are lagging in the polls. Still, conservative radio host Steve Deace is urging Iowa’s voters to choose between them.
“Unless one of them can successfully close the sale to those voters, it is likely the end result will be a balkanizing of this key constituency that will benefit Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney,” he wrote in a memo to religious conservatives. “The other end result would be Christian pro-family/pro-life voters failing to take advantage of the most unpopular Democrat incumbent president running for re-election since 1980.”
