Iowa Evangelical Leader Bob Vander Plaats Doesn’t Believe Polls Showing Strong Christian Support For Trump

Iowa’s top evangelical leader, Bob Vander Plaats, is doubtful about the massive amount of support that Donald Trump is receiving from Iowa’s Christian voters in recent polls of the state.

“I don’t believe them, and there’s a reason I don’t believe them — because it does not match up at all to what I’m hearing on the ground,” he told The Washington Post.

According to the NBC News-Des Moines Register-Mediacom Iowa poll released on December 11, the former president’s substantial lead in the early-voting state is being strengthened by evangelical and first-time likely caucusgoers.

Trump was in the lead thanks to 51% of people likely to participate in the caucuses selecting him as their first option. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, received 19% first-time support.

Trump has received 51% of support from evangelical Christians and 63% from first-time caucusgoers. He has also been given 59% of support from self-identified Republicans.

Though Vander Plaats has been friends with Trump for 12 years and voted for him in 2016 and 2020, he still supported DeSantis back in November and gave him an endorsement as an evangelical leader.

“I believe my endorsement of Gov. DeSantis is not against Donald Trump,” the Iowan evangelical leader stated. “But I do believe the former president presents the highest hurdle for us to win in 2024.”

The political activist made it clear that he is not sure if Trump’s candidacy will spark a division among both evangelical leaders and evangelical voters.

“There’s some evangelicals [who] believe Trump of 2016 is going to be Trump of 2024,” Vander Plaats claimed. “And I get that. I understand where they’d be like, ‘I’d rather have Trump than Joe Biden. I want to bring Trump back because Trump was good.’ I’m not discounting that stuff at all. I’m just saying I’m looking at electability and who’s going to move us forward.”

He addressed that Trump’s name recognition is important to evangelicals. He also believes Christians are more likely to nominate someone they already know than someone they do not.

“You’re not going to leave him until you’re sold on somebody,” he said. “There’s also part of the evangelical community, which I fully understand, they want a disrupter. They just want a disrupter: ‘This is wrong, and we need a disrupter just to shake it up.’ And I think they view Trump being a champion in that.”

Trump still has a strong hold on the evangelical community despite the crude remarks he made against them in the past, according to Tim Alberta‘s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.

Vander Plaats responded to the comments made by Trump against him, suggesting that he is wasting money endorsing DeSantis, saying the former president is “not worthy” of his endorsement.