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'You gotta be tough': White evangelicals remain enthusiastic about Donald Trump
First Church of God Pastor Charles Hundley sings a hymn during the morning service, Sunday, Jan. 7, in Des Moines, Iowa. Former President Donald Trump and his rivals for the GOP nomination have pushed for endorsements from pastors and faith communities. Evangelicals and religious Christian groups are traditionally critical to the Republican Party.
Charlie Neibergall/AP
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Charlie Neibergall/AP
First Church of God Pastor Charles Hundley sings a hymn during the morning service, Sunday, Jan. 7, in Des Moines, Iowa. Former President Donald Trump and his rivals for the GOP nomination have pushed for endorsements from pastors and faith communities. Evangelicals and religious Christian groups are traditionally critical to the Republican Party.
Charlie Neibergall/AP
White evangelical Christians show no signs of backing away from Donald Trump. That appears to be one takeaway from Iowa’s Republican caucuses, where the former president won a decisive victory over several challengers.
In 2016, there was a lot of head-scratching about evangelical support for Trump – given his divorces, allegations of both extramarital affairs and sexual assault, and his insults toward women, immigrants, and others.
But many white evangelicals, like Shelley Buhrow, look past all that.
Nobody’s perfect
“Have you read the Bible?” Buhrow asked. “Many people in the Bible were married multiple times and they didn’t always do the perfect thing.”
Buhrow, who attended a pro-Trump event in a suburb outside Des Moines leading up to Monday’s Iowa caucuses, says she’s been a Trump supporter since his first Iowa caucus in 2016.
“People aren’t perfect,” Buhrow said. “God is perfect.”
Buhrow disregards the 91 state and federal criminal charges Trump is facing – including trying to overturn the 2020 election. She says they’re illegitimate and she doesn’t think they’ll stick.
A binary choice, no longer
In this file photo from 2020, People raise their arms in prayer during a rally for evangelical supporters of President Donald Trump at the King Jesus International Ministry church, Friday, Jan. 3, 2020, in Miami.
Lynne Sladky/AP
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In this file photo from 2020, People raise their arms in prayer during a rally for evangelical supporters of President Donald Trump at the King Jesus International Ministry church, Friday, Jan. 3, 2020, in Miami.
Lynne Sladky/AP
Around 8 in ten white evangelicals supported Trump in the general election in 2016 and a similar number again in 2020, when he lost to President Biden. Some defended those votes as a choice between Trump, who would advance goals like restricting abortion, and a Democrat, who would not.
Luana Stoltenberg, a Republican state representative, said she had some initial concerns about Donald Trump when he first emerged on the political scene.
“I just knew him as, you know, the developer and kind of the playboy kind of a guy,” she remembered.
Stoltenberg had friends who “prayed through it” and believed Trump was “supposed to be” the president, and she herself quickly came around to supporting Trump in the 2016 election.
But this year, according to CNN entrance polls, more than half of white evangelicals in Iowa still chose Trump, even when they had several other options.
Many, like Brad Sherman, who’s both a state representative and an evangelical pastor, see Trump’s harsh style as an asset even though the former president sometimes “says things I wouldn’t say.”
“Yeah, he’s brash; he’s a fighter,” Sherman says. ‘That’s who we need right now in the political arena, in the environment that exists. You gotta be tough.”
A culture at a crossroads
White evangelicals find themselves in a paradoxical moment, as their overall share of the U.S. population steadily declines. They wield outsized power in American politics because of their grip on the Republican Party. But two long-term trends have resulted in waning numbers and cultural influence for white evangelicals: Increasing racial diversity, at the same time that Americans as a whole are becoming less religious. At the same time, Latino evangelical communities appear to be growing, a trend driven in part by immigration patterns.
Al Perez is an Iowa pastor who has worked on evangelical-led efforts to connect Republican candidates with voters of color in the state. Perez says sometimes the voices of non-white evangelicals have been left out conversations about Republican politics.
Perez didn’t endorse anyone in the Iowa caucuses, but he says he’s concerned about the way he’s seen some evangelicals talk about Trump, even comparing him to Jesus Christ.
“As an evangelical – Latino evangelical – I’m very concerned,” Perez said. “That this is almost…messianic, as though that’s the best way to describe it to you. I’m very concerned.”
Perez is part of the Pentecostal tradition within conservative Christianity, which emphasizes miracles and direct communication from God. He was concerned, he says, when some in his tradition became convinced that Trump would win the 2020 election because of what they believed were divine “prophecies” about Trump.
“I think the lines become blurred,” he explained “We cross certain lines when we think a certain candidate’s going to solve all the ills and problems of the world, of America.”
An increasingly political label
In this file photo from 2020, Pastor Paula White, left, and other faith leaders pray with President Donald Trump, center, during a rally for evangelical supporters at the King Jesus International Ministry church in Miami.
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In this file photo from 2020, Pastor Paula White, left, and other faith leaders pray with President Donald Trump, center, during a rally for evangelical supporters at the King Jesus International Ministry church in Miami.
Lynne Sladky/AP
Samuel Perry, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma, says even with recent victories like the overturning of the abortion-rights decision Roe v. Wade, many still see themselves as underdogs in a culture war.
“And they believe Trump is the guy who has in the past and continues to fight for them,” Perry said.
Since Trump’s rise, Perry says that the word “evangelical” has taken on an increasingly political meaning versus its religious or theological one.
“The conservative, Trump-supporting faction of evangelicalism, I think, has laid claim successfully to the evangelical space,” Perry explained, “in a way that if you don’t fit in that, and you don’t feel like all of what that term represents now is you, then then you back away.”
But Perry says most of those who still identify as evangelical show no signs of softening their support for Trump.
Still, moving even a relatively small number of those voters could make a big difference in November.
Doug Pagitt is executive director of Vote Common Good, which works to persuade evangelicals and Catholics to support progressive candidates and policies. His group will be heavily focused on a handful of key swing states this year.
“Because moving 3% of evangelicals away from voting for Donald Trump on Election Day makes it, by our estimates, impossible for him to win in those states,” Pagitt predicted.
That’s assuming Trump becomes the Republican nominee. For now, all eyes are on the Jan. 23 primary in New Hampshire – a state with fewer evangelical voters and more moderates – who may be somewhat more open to another candidate.
new video loaded: Americans Exposed to Hantavirus on Cruise Ship Arrive in United States
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Americans Exposed to Hantavirus on Cruise Ship Arrive in United States
Eighteen passengers who were aboard the MV Hondius, a cruise ship with a deadly hantavirus outbreak, landed in Omaha on a U.S. government medical flight. The passengers were being monitored at medical facilities in Nebraska and Georgia.
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We’re working diligently to ensure no one leaves the security in an unsecured way at an inappropriate time. No one who poses a risk to public health is walking out the front door of the streets of Omaha or beyond.
By Axel Boada
May 11, 2026
The man charged with attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month pleaded not guilty at a Monday arraignment in federal court.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, wearing an orange shirt and trousers, was handcuffed and shackled as he was brought into the courtroom in Washington, D.C., federal court. His handcuffs were attached to a chain around his waist, which clanked as he was led to the defense table.
Speaking on behalf of Allen, federal public defender Tezira Abe said her client “pleads not guilty to all four counts as charged,” including attempting to assassinate the president of the United States, in connection with the April 25 incident at the Washington Hilton hotel.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Jones advised the court that they plan to start producing their first tranche of discovery to the defense by the end of the week.
Officials said Allen, a California teacher and engineer, was armed with multiple guns, as well as knives, when he sprinted through a security checkpoint near the event where Trump and other White House officials had gathered with journalists.
He was arrested after an exchange of gunfire with a U.S. Secret Service officer who fired at him multiple times, a criminal complaint said. Allen was not shot during the exchange. The officer, who was wearing a ballistic vest, was shot once in the chest, treated at a hospital and released.
Trump and top members of his Cabinet and Congress were quickly evacuated from the room as others ducked under tables.
Allen was initially charged with attempting to assassinate the president, transportation of a firearm and ammunition through interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence. On Tuesday, a federal grand jury indicted him on a new charge in the shooting of a Secret Service agent.
Moments before the attack, Allen had sent his family members a note apologizing and criticizing Trump without mentioning the president by name, according to a transcript of some of his writings provided to NBC News by a senior administration official. Allen also wrote that “administration officials (not including Mr. Patel)” were “targets.”
He also appeared to have taken a selfie in his hotel room. Prosecutors said Allen, who was dressed in a black button-down shirt and black pants, was “wearing a small leather bag consistent in appearance with the ammunition-filled bag later recovered from his person,” as well as a shoulder holster, a sheathed knife, pliers and wire cutters.
Officials have said they believe Allen had traveled by train from California to Washington, D.C., before checking into the hotel.
Allen’s sister, Avriana Allen, told law enforcement that her brother would make radical comments and constantly referenced a plan to fix the world, but said their parents were unaware that he had firearms in the home and that he would regularly train at shooting ranges.
Records show that he had purchased a Maverick 12-gauge shotgun in August 2025 and an Armscor Precision .38 semiautomatic pistol in October 2023.
After his arrest, Allen told the FBI that he did not expect to survive the incident, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine. He was briefly placed on suicide watch at the Washington, D.C., jail, where he’s being held.
Allen is expected to appear in court for a June 29 hearing.
At Monday’s arraignment, his legal team said they plan on asking for the “entire office” of the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to be recused because of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s apparent involvement in the case in a “supervisory role.” Federal public defender Eugene Ohm said some of the evidence they receive from the government will further inform that decision.
Note: Map shows the area with a shake intensity of 3 or greater, which U.S.G.S. defines as “weak,” though the earthquake may be felt outside the areas shown. The New York Times
Shake intensity
Pop. density
A cluster of earthquakes have struck near the U.S.-Mexico border, including ones with a 4.5 and 4.7 magnitude, according to the United States Geological Survey.
As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake’s reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.
Subsequent quakes have been reported in the same area. Such temblors are typically aftershocks caused by minor adjustments along the portion of a fault that slipped at the time of the initial earthquake.
Aftershocks detected
Quakes and aftershocks within 100 miles
Aftershocks can occur days, weeks or even years after the first earthquake. These events can be of equal or larger magnitude to the initial earthquake, and they can continue to affect already damaged locations.
The New York Times
When quakes and aftershocks occurred
Sources: United States Geological Survey (epicenter, aftershocks, shake intensity); LandScan via Oak Ridge National Laboratory (population density) | Notes: Shaking categories are based on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. When aftershock data is available, the corresponding maps and charts include earthquakes within 100 miles and seven days of the initial quake. All times above are Pacific time. Shake data is as of Saturday, May 9 at 11:55 p.m. Eastern. Aftershocks data is as of Sunday, May 10 at 11:54 p.m. Eastern.
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