Donald Trump, who loves to call others “losers,” is a big
one himself in a new survey of U.S. Protestant pastors.
When LifeWay Research, an evangelical polling group, asked
Republican pastors in mid-January who their pick would be if they were voting
that very day, Trump was named by only 5 percent.
“Undecided” was the big winner with more than a third of GOP
pastors (39 percent) in the survey. Indeed, 48 percent overall said they had no
top choice in this “bizarre election season,” said LifeWay
Research executive
director Ed Stetzer.
Trump’s poor showing with pastors — despite his roaring
popularity with voters — shows “a huge gap between the pulpit and the pew,”
said Stetzer.
The top Republican choice by those who did name someone was
Sen. Ted Cruz (29 percent). He has stumped in Iowa citing his Baptist preacher
father’s dramatic conversion to faith. He was first pick among both evangelical
and mainline Protestant pastors.
The findings reflect that “Protestant pastors tend to be
more conservative than the population as a whole. And they are far more
evangelical than they are mainline,” said Stetzer.
So many are undecided, he said, because they’re busy
pastoring, not tracking politics. “Plus, they’re not in Iowa so they don’t have
to decide yet.”
For those Republican pastors who did decide, Ben Carson, a
Seventh-day Adventist, came in second
(10 percent) with a strong base among evangelicals. He was followed by
Sen. Marco Rubio (8 percent), a Catholic who has been advertising his Christian
devotion in Iowa.
Gov. John Kasich, former Gov. Jeb Bush and Gov. Chris
Christie fell into the catch-all “others” category with less than 2 percent
each.
Pastors who say they’re Democrats were more decisive: 38
percent picked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
But Sen. Bernie Sanders (at 23 percent) fell behind the
undecided (31 percent). And former Gov. Martin O’Malley couldn’t muster more
than 2 percent.
Of the 1,000 Protestants surveyed, 54 percent said they are
Republican, 23 percent were independent and 14 percent said they are Democrats.
The research was conducted Jan. 8-22. It has a margin of
error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
Source: Christian Headlines
No comments:
Post a Comment