Trump led white evangelical polls in July 2015 before any primary debate

Evidence

A poll conducted in July 2015 found 20 percent of Republican-leaning white evangelicals supporting Donald Trump, compared to 14 percent for Scott Walker, 12 percent for Huckabee, and 11 percent for Jeb Bush. Marco Rubio came in at 7 percent, and Ted Cruz at just 5 percent. Journalists struggled to explain the baffling phenomenon of evangelical support for “the brash Manhattan billionaire” who seemed to stand for everything they despised. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 572

Categorization

• SHARE: A precise early-poll data point specific to someone tracking Trump-era evangelical demography.