With his massive victory in the South Carolina primary on Saturday night, Donald Trump has proven that indeed the "evangelicals love me and I love them."
The brash New York billionaire has been making that statement for months notwithstanding the fact that his rival Sen. Ted Cruz is supposed to be the evangelical candidate, veteran news journalist David Brody notes in his "The Brody File" column for CBN News.
Indeed, it was truly remarkable that Trump won the votes of the evangelicals, who came out in droves to make their voices heard in the Palmetto state. Pollsters noted that 72 percent of the voters in South Carolina on Saturday night were evangelicals. Trump won 33 percent of them. Cruz won 27 percent, and Sen. Marco Rubio, another candidate supposedly close to the evangelicals, won 22 percent.
"So let's not kid ourselves here: Donald Trump is on his way to the GOP nomination and if he wins it, it will be because of evangelicals. Plain and simple," Brody writes.
Trump won despite his Christianity being questioned by many people, including Pope Francis himself. And yet the evangelicals still cast their lot with him.
Why?
Brody says that although Rubio and Cruz are "solid men who love Jesus," Trump was the one "who has done the best job of channelling the anger of the GOP electorate" against the Obama administration and with their own party as well.
The evangelicals "felt like cheap political pawns for years, constantly being used by the GOP to get out and vote and then having nothing to show for it," Brody says. "With Trump, many of those evangelicals feel like they've found the politically incorrect mouthpiece to channel their inner frustration."
There are many evangelicals who can't stand Trump's brashness, Brody notes. "But as we saw in South Carolina, there are plenty who trust him to get America back on the right track," he says.
The Republican presidential nomination process now heads to Nevada where Trump also holds a huge lead. This will be followed on March 1, Super Tuesday, when 15 states hold primaries and caucuses. Pollsters say Trump is expected to win big in at least five of these states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia.
With the way things are shaping up, Brody says the only candidate that can beat Trump is Trump himself. "Let's have some truth telling here: if this was anybody other than Donald Trump, we'd say this nomination process is virtually over. But because it's Trump and he's such a wild card, we can't say that," Brody says.
"If Trump is going to lose this nomination, he'll have to beat himself. He'll have to be SO over the top that it becomes too much to handle. I'm not convinced that's going to happen," he adds.
