WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump will speak Saturday before a group of politically influential evangelicals who strongly support him but would like to see the presumptive Republican presidential nominee promise to do more to restrict abortion.
Trump’s outspoken opposition to signing a nationwide ban on abortion and his unwillingness to detail some of his positions on the issue are at odds with many members of the evangelical movement, a key part of Trump’s base that is expected to help him turn out voters in his November election campaign. rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.
While Trump has nominated three Supreme Court justices who have overturned a federally guaranteed right to abortion, he has argued that supporting a national ban would hurt Republicans politically. About two-thirds of Americans believe abortion should generally be legal, according to polling last year by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs.
Ralph Reed, the founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition who will address Trump on Saturday, said people in his movement would like to see a federal ban on abortion and want Republican elected officials to be “courageous profiles” who “voice their opinions.” . strongly held pro-life views.”
But, Reed said, Trump’s positions do not put him at risk of losing the deep support of evangelical voters, who give him “more slack in the rope than they would probably give any other politician.”
“I don’t think it will hurt him because he has tremendous credibility in this area,” Reed said. “He did more for the pro-life and pro-family cause than any president we’ve ever had in the history of the movement.”
According to AP VoteCast, a broad-based survey of the electorate, about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christian voters supported Trump in 2020, and nearly 4 in 10 Trump voters identified as white evangelical Christians. White evangelical Christians made up about 20% of the total electorate that year.
In addition to offering their own support in the general election, Reed’s group plans to help turn out votes for Trump and other Republicans, aiming to use volunteers and paid workers to knock on millions of doors in battleground states.
While he continues to take credit for reversing Roe v. Wade, Trump has also warned that abortion could be politically troublesome for Republicans. For months, he has deferred questions about his position on a national ban.
When Trump addressed Reed’s group last year, he said there is “a critical role for the federal government in protecting unborn life,” but provided no further details.
In April this year, Trump said he believed the issue should now be left to the states. He later stated in an interview that he would not sign a nationwide ban on abortion if it were passed by Congress. He still does not want to comment on his position on women’s access to the abortion pill mifepristone.
In 2016, white evangelical Christians were initially reluctant to support Trump and distrusted his image as a twice-divorced gossip celebrity from New York City who had at one point described himself as “very pro-choice.”
But his promises to appoint justices to the court who would overturn Roe, along with his decision in 2016 to name Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian, as his running mate, helped him win the movement’s support.
Several Republicans seen as potential running mates for Trump are also speaking at the conference, including New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, former presidential candidate and Trump Housing Secretary Ben Carson and Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake. Stefanik and Carson are among Republicans who have received vetting papers from the Trump campaign in recent weeks.
Reed said members of his coalition are watching them closely and are eager for Trump to choose someone who shares his views.
“We are looking for someone who will be a champion, a pro-family and pro-life and pro-Israel champion. And we are looking for someone who has the ability to attract some new people and act as an ambassador for our values,” he said.
Reed didn’t call anyone in the field the strongest or the weakest, calling it “an embarrassment of riches.”
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Associated Press writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this report.
