Trump will make a case to evangelical voters in key 2024 GOP auditions

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CNN —

Former President Donald Trump is set to address evangelical Christian voters at a large gathering Saturday in Washington, where he will try to shore up their support as his legal troubles mount and rivals target his character.

The Faith & Freedom Coalitions Road to Majority Policy Conference kicks off a summer of cattle calls where the GOP field will audition before key audiences ahead of the 2024 presidential primary. Most of Trumps rivals spoke on Friday, with several jabs, both direct and subtle, at the former president.

But Trump had the main speaking spot at the conferences, delivering what was billed as the keynote address at a dinner on Saturday. This is his first in-person appearance at a 2024 gathering of presidential hopefuls since announcing his candidacy. For past events, such as Iowa Sen. Joni Ernsts Roast and Ride earlier this month, Trump appeared via video message.

The Faith & Freedom conference provides a window into a critical constituency in the Republican nominating fight: evangelical voters. Those voters will play a big role in the Iowa caucuses and South Carolina’s primary first and third contests on the 2024 GOP calendar.

It comes as the parties’ presidential field takes shape, with former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, a staunch critic of Trump, was the latest to join the race on Thursday. Hurd is not scheduled to speak at this weekend’s conference.

For Trump, who a CNN poll found last week remains the clear front-runner for the 2024 GOP nod with 47% support among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters nationwide ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis 26% and former Vice President Mike Pences 9% the most significant threat he currently faces may be a series of legal battles, including his federal indictment on charges related to his alleged misconduct of classified documents.

Trump has made that accusation a focus of recent events, addressing it at length at rallies. In an interview with Fox News Bret Baier, he offered several new justifications for keeping classified material after leaving the White House and refusing to hand them over to the National Archives and Records Administration.

For the rest of the field, Friday’s and Saturday’s gatherings represent an opportunity to chip away at Trump’s support or at least define themselves in front of a key constituency in case GOP voters abandon the former president

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a former United Nations ambassador under Trump, is scheduled to speak Saturday. Most of the other major contenders for the 2024 Republican nomination emerged Friday.

The Trump-heavy lineup included the former president in the keynote slot and some of his allies, including former Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, on the speakers roster emphasizes his dominance within the party.

However, on Friday, some candidates used their speeches to take aim at the former president, in direct and more subtle ways.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie focused on the importance of character and told the crowd that Trump has failed us.

Beware of a leader who doesn’t make mistakes, beware of a leader who has no mistakes, beware of a leader who says when something goes wrong, its everybody else’s fault. And he goes and takes the blame, Christie said, in an apparent reference to Trump.

As Christie criticized Trump, some members of the audience began to boo.

You can boo all you want, he told them.

Other Republican 2024 contenders either ignored Trump entirely or defended him. Criticized by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott is the lawsuit of the special counsels of the Justice Department against Trump.

In this radical left Biden administration, they are using the Department of Justice against their political enemies. That is wrong. We deserve better in the United States of America, Scott said.

A major issue in the GOP debates starting this summer may be abortion. Trump, who raised questions about the issue by taking credit for the US Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, avoided being pressed on whether he supports a federal ban on abortion rights and if so, after several weeks of pregnancy he wants such a ban to take effect.

Pence on Friday applied pressure on Trump and others to sidestep that question, including Haley, who called on the GOP field to support a 15-week federal ban.

Every Republican candidate for president should support banning abortions before 15 weeks as a national minimum standard, Pence said.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, another Trump critic in the 2024 race, said he would sign a federal abortion ban but did not specify how many weeks into the pregnancy he wanted such a ban to take effect.

DeSantis, Trump’s leading rival in the polls, made only brief mention of the Florida measure he signed that bans most abortions in the state after six weeks. (The law is still in effect amid a separate ongoing legal challenge before the state Supreme Court.)

But Florida’s governor has leaned into other cultural clashes, touting his state as a bastion of freedom. He pointed to a state law banning certain teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom and discussed his feud with Disney, which DeSantis and GOP allies have targeted for retaliation since the public the company opposed what critics called the Dont Say Gay law.

We oppose the sexualization of children. We will fight against anyone who seeks to rob our children of their innocence. And on those principles, there is no compromise, the governor said. We will fight the woke corporations.

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