Internal evangelical factionalism dissolved as the vote coalesced behind Trump

Evidence

Russell Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and a Rubio supporter, summed up the evangelical vote: “I would say that Ted Cruz is leading in the ‘Jerry Falwell’ wing, Marco Rubio is leading the ‘Billy Graham’ wing and Trump is leading the ‘Jimmy Swaggart’ wing.” With the last remark, Moore was referring to prosperity gospel Pentecostals, but also no doubt alluding to Swaggart’s sex-with-prostitute scandals. But Iowa evangelical political operative Bob Vander Plaats cautioned against pigeonholing evangelicals in this way. “I don’t think we want to divide Christianity along those lines,” he advised. “We all break off the same church.” In the words of fellow operative David Lane, “Politics is about addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division.” Vander Plaats and Lane were right. Before long the evangelical vote began to coalesce. Behind Donald Trump. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 567

Categorization

• QUESTION: Moore’s neat tripartite taxonomy (Falwell/Graham/Swaggart wings) is striking — did these distinctions map cleanly onto actual voting behavior, or were they retrospective rationalizations?