DeSantis, Trump court Iowa's evangelical voters, promising Christian-focused policy

In November, Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis netted what seemed to be a key evangelical endorsement in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses -- now just less than three weeks away.

Bob Vander Plaats, president of the FAMiLY Leader organization and a major evangelical figure in the Hawkeye State, endorsed the governor in an interview on Fox News, calling DeSantis a "bold and courageous leader."

Whether or not Vander Plaats' endorsement makes a significant difference for DeSantis, it ties into a constant theme on the campaign trail: DeSantis, former President Donald Trump, and other candidates have been trying to court evangelical voters throughout their campaigns.

Employing religious rhetoric on the campaign trail is not a new phenomenon.

What's novel about how Christianity is being discussed this election cycle, some political scientists told ABC News, is how candidates talk about policy and "culture war" ideas to appeal to Christian and evangelical voters -- a critical voting bloc in Iowa and elsewhere in the country.

Specifically, some candidates focus on pushing back against what the candidates say is a growing anti-Christian sentiment and hostility toward religion and religious views.

Some political observers and religious freedom advocates expressed concern that the candidates' religious language, such as how they will be fighters and warriors for Christians, can also appeal to those who espouse Christian nationalism, which favors Christianity over other religions, conflates being Christian with being American and is often linked to diverse attitudes on race.

Such language is exclusionary and has potential policy implications for governance, they say.

But some conservatives dismiss these concerns -- with the DeSantis campaign calling them "partisan nonsense."

Courting evangelical voters

Voters have heard Christian and evangelical messages across airwaves and during campaign events this election cycle.

"I'm in a group that for years have been praying that God would raise up good godly statesmen, as opposed to politicians ... and we're seeing the answers to those prayers, and many, most of these people, I'm glad to hear what they believe," Candy Twedt, an evangelical voter from Iowa, told ABC News at the 2023 FAMiLY Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, in June.

DeSantis told attendees at the Pray Vote Stand Summit in September, "I'm sometimes asked about the role that faith plays in my leadership as governor ... I don't know how you could be a leader without having faith in God."

The governor also framed his Christian bona fides in a practical way: "As your president, I'm going to get to work on restoring full religious freedom in this country. First step is to ensure that we nominate and place constitutionalist judges on the courts of appeal and on the U.S. Supreme Court. My nominees will reflect the jurisprudence of justices like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr.," he said. DeSantis did not name any specific rulings from Thomas and Alito. Both have been praised by religious conservatives.

"No president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have, and I will keep on fighting for Christians as hard as I can for four more years in the White House," Trump said during a speech at the same summit.

In a rally in Waterloo, Iowa, in December, Trump alleged that the U.S. government was targeting Christians, citing a Republican-chaired House Judiciary Committee interim staff report that claimed the FBI mishandled domestic extremism investigations into Catholics, and said he would put a stop to it: "When I'm back in the White House, never again will your government be used to target Christians and other religious believers. Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice that's fair and equitable ... They are going after Christians in America."

The former president has repeatedly framed himself as a defender of Christians. In September, at a summit run by the Concerned Women for America conservative Christian action group, Trump used stark language. "This election will decide whether America will be ruled by Marxist, fascist, and communist tyrants who want to smash our Judeo-Christian heritage, or whether America will be saved by God-fearing, freedom-loving patriots just like you," he said.

During other election cycles, candidates also spoke to evangelical themes and campaigned for their vote. In 2008, both then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama and then-Republican candidate John McCain courted evangelical voters, and Obama's campaign made direct efforts to reach out to faith leaders.

In 2004, President George W. Bush campaigned for reelection on "moral issues" and evangelical vernacular, just a few years after religion became more prominent in politics after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

While not erasing or minimizing presidential candidates' genuine religious beliefs, some experts pointed to how the use of evangelical ideas while campaigning has shifted in more recent years.

"With what we've seen with the Trump administration, and since then, it really has reshaped how the right talks about faith ... pushing for some of those cultural war issues that they believe the evangelical voting bloc was interested in," Andrew Whitehead, associate professor of sociology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, told ABC News.

"I think we've seen more explicit and then implicit ways of invoking religion, and specifically Christianity, within these conversations ... They are choosing to invoke some God talk, which is a little implicit," Allyson Shortle, associate professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma, told ABC News.

But separately from evangelical voters as a group or individuals, Shortle said that how candidates present issues may also be appealing to those who express Christian nationalist ideas.

Candidates are then speaking in a way "that only other religious Christians or Christian nationalists will pick up on the language of mobilization there to protect society for Christianity," Shortle said, adding that some policy proposals and issues candidates campaign on can also implicitly support Christian nationalist messages.

"The candidates are hard at work to demonstrate their allegiance to white Christian nationalists," Rachel Laser, CEO of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State advocacy group, argued in an interview with ABC News.

Christian nationalism is an ideology that experts define as a movement and viewpoint that sees America as a Christian nation -- as opposed to a nation for people of all religions -- and that to be a true American is to be Christian.

Both advocates and critics of Christian nationalism have pointed to how it could be utilized in policy and government contexts, such as to inform legislation about abortion access, given how abortion is a key issue for the religious right.

Response from evangelicals

With evangelical voters in Iowa, DeSantis still lags behind Trump. A December Des Moines Register, NBC News and Mediacom poll of Iowan voters, for instance, found that 51% of white evangelicals who are likely Republican caucus voters in the Hawkeye State support Trump, while only 26% support DeSantis.

Could Bob Vander Plaats' endorsement make a difference for DeSantis, at least in Iowa, among evangelicals?

In past years, Vander Plaats' nod has proven critical in Iowa, although not as influential elsewhere. He supported candidates who went on to win the caucus in past elections, including Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Santorum in 2012 and Ted Cruz in 2016. All three, though, did not go on to win the Republican nomination for president.

The poll released in December from the Des Moines Register, Mediacom and NBC News also showed more than half of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers feeling that his endorsement would not matter.

Why has Trump courted evangelical voters so effectively nationally?

Trump has "gone out of his way" to work on issues that matter to evangelicals, "and he says he will advocate for them," and then delivered on promises such as appointing an anti-abortion access justice to the Supreme Court, Khyati Joshi, a professor of education at Farleigh Dickinson University and an expert on religion and race, told ABC News.

"So many Americans really are one-issue voters ... And this was their issue. And this is what he said he would do [in his previous campaign], in a way that was so plainspoken ... The others weren't saying it that way," Joshi said.

The success of Republican candidates with evangelical voters contrasts to an extent with the Democratic side of the race for 2024. President Joe Biden is Catholic and speaks often about his faith, but Biden and the Democratic Party have historically not attracted as many evangelical voters. Exit polling for the 2020 elections found that only 24% of white evangelical or born-again Christian voters chose Biden, while 76% chose Trump.

Eric McDaniel, co-director of the Politics of Race and Ethnicity Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, told ABC News this is due to historical trends, how Republicans have aligned themselves with Christian voters, and how Democrats have struggled with messaging on religion in a way that seems sincere to evangelicals.

Republicans have often painted Democrats as anti-religion, but additionally, "I think there is an inability on the part of Democrats to effectively talk about religion in a way that is sincere ... They need a 'come to Jesus moment,' like, 'OK, how are we actually going to talk about this?'" McDaniel said.

Some warn about Christian nationalism

Advocates and experts say the same language that candidates use to speak to evangelicals also echoes Christian nationalist ideas, which are not specific to any one denomination of Christianity.

This is separate from examining specific groups of voters; ideas shared by Christian nationalism are not specific to any one denomination of Christianity. The Pew Research Center found in 2022 that people across various Christian groups believe the U.S. "should be a Christian nation today."

Trump's and DeSantis' rhetoric has sparked these concerns in the past, as well. The Orlando Sentinel reported on the Florida governor's references when campaigning in 2022 to "put on the full armor of God," which is a quote from the New Testament's Epistle to the Ephesians.

DeSantis' office told the Sentinel in 2022 that "the governor is a Christian and there is absolutely no issue with him sharing his values or utilizing them in his decision-making as a leader." DeSantis has continued to invoke the line while campaigning in 2023.

"The focus of the left and the media on the idea of 'Christian Nationalism' is complete partisan nonsense. Ron DeSantis is a Christian, defends Christian values, and his faith certainly guides him in his leadership," Bryan Griffin, press secretary for DeSantis' campaign, told ABC News in a statement.

"The United States of America is a country founded on Judeo-Christian values. These values instructing our leaders and government isn't 'exclusionary' ... but they are central to America and its founding principles. Our society and country are far better off because of these values and with leaders at the helm who hold them, like Ron DeSantis," the statement read.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News on the experts' claims about his rhetoric sometimes echoing Christian nationalist ideas.

The issues at play with Christian nationalism are not just about religion, experts told ABC News. Joshi and Laser both emphasized that race cannot be divorced from any discussion of Christian nationalism and that the term "white Christian nationalism" may be more accurate.

That ideology is "saying America is for white and Christian people, and the rest of you go away, or just join the group," Joshi told ABC News, adding that non-white candidates can also invoke white Christian nationalism.

On the campaign trail, how candidates discuss Christian and evangelical ideas matters, Laser argued.

"Candidates need to be careful to communicate that they will be governing from the standpoint of American law and values, and not their personal religious views," Laser said.

Editors Note: This has been updated for clarity.

ABC News' Hannah Demissie, Libby Cathey, Will McDuffie, Abby Cruz, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Kendall Ross, Beatrice Peterson and Isabella Murray contributed to this report.