Former President Donald Trump’s highly anticipated vice presidential pick will likely help shape his policy and invigorate a wide net of voters.
However, evangelicals seem to have their mind made up already. They have decided to vote for Trump, according to nearly two dozen interviews conducted by Politico.
While the religious group may have needed a push to vote for Trump in 2016, which is likely why the former president chose the devoutly religious and anti-abortion advocate Mike Pence, most evangelicals don’t appear to need an extra boost this time around.
“I think evangelicals will generally, by and large, vote for him regardless of who he picks,” said Kevin McClure, a member of a Baptist church in Louisville, Kentucky. “Because the Republican platform currently, in the very least, has a place for pro-life priorities, even if they’re not as strong as many of us would want.”
The former president said he was for abortion rights in 1999 before taking an anti-abortion stance for his 2016 election win. His past likely generated some skepticism among Republican evangelical voters, but Pence served to dissuade those fears. Now, as Trump needs to pick a new vice president, the consideration of evangelicals may not weigh so heavily.
“We took a risk on what he said he would do, and he came through and he delivered in that case,” said Scott Colter, the CEO of the anti-abortion Danbury Institute. “And so we can debate all day long the merits of who Donald Trump is and his personality and all of those different things. But he did what he said he would do. … And I’m tremendously grateful for that.”
The evangelicals interviewed reportedly want Trump to pick someone even further to the right of him on the topic — both because that person could press the matter in the White House and because he or she could be the heir apparent to the MAGA movement.
All eight of Trump’s vetted vice presidential candidates are anti-abortion, though there is some variance in their exact stances. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who is liked by some evangelicals, has supported federal abortion bans, while Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) has said he would leave the issue up to the states.
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Trump’s campaign has reportedly narrowed its vice president list to eight candidates: Scott, Burgum, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
His pick will likely be announced around the party’s convention in Milwaukee beginning on July 15.
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