Ben Carson joined the top tier of Republican presidential contenders this week with a message rooted in the socially conservative values of his most supportive base: white evangelicals.
Yet he still trails Republican front-runner Donald Trump among that group — a man who claims to have never sought forgiveness from God — and it’s unclear whether such support will be enough to carry the political novice to the GOP nomination.
Following a well-received performance at the first GOP debate and his frequent criticism of Planned Parenthood, Carson has recently seen interest in his campaign rise. In Tuesday’s CNN/ORC national poll, Carson placed third after Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
“Since his announcement in May, Dr. Carson has consistently polled in the top tier of GOP candidates,” his press secretary Deana Bass said.
“His recent success is in part because the debate introduced him to a larger audience. We find where ever we go across the country when people hear directly from Dr. Carson, his message resonates. He doesn’t sound like a politician because he is not a politician. People find his authenticity and his solutions for America to be a breath of fresh air.”
Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who rose to political prominence two years ago with his blistering attack against President Barack Obama’s policies at the National Prayer Breakfast, has rallied much of the GOP’s conservative Christian base with a cry for greater religious freedoms and his fierce opposition to abortion rights.
“Even though the President says we’re not a Judeo-Christian nation, he doesn’t get to decide what kind of nation we are. We get to decide,” Carson told a crowd earlier this week in Phoenix.
That event was originally scheduled to take place at a suburban Phoenix church, but was moved downtown to the Phoenix Convention Center — the same venue where Trump addressed a large crowd last month — to accommodate a larger-than-expected audience.
In Phoenix, Carson explained how his religious faith fuels his opposition to Planned Parenthood over its abortion services, and how scriptures’ concepts of tithing influence his 10% flat tax plan.
“I want a system that’s based on biblical principles, because it seems to me that God is pretty fair,” he said Tuesday.
Carson’s message has resonated with Republican voters. In a CNN/ORC poll earlier this month, he tied with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as the best GOP candidate to handle abortion, grabbing 17% of the vote. And he was the considered the top GOP candidate who “best represents Republican values.”
Despite this recent ascension, Carson’s support with white evangelicals pales in comparison to Trump’s.
According to the most recent CNN/ORC poll, 23% of white evangelicals support Trump, a Presbyterian who referred to communion last month as “the little wine and the little cracker.”
David Brody, chief political news correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network, earlier this month explained why Trump has appeal among some evangelicals, saying they appreciate his honesty about his faith and like how he speaks in “absolutes.”
“Now, think of conservative evangelicals. In their quest to champion biblical values, their mindset is much the same. It is a world of absolutes,” he wrote in a blog post. “They believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God. Non-negotiable. They believe there is only one way to heaven and that is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Non-negotiable.”
Trump spoke to an estimated crowd of 30,000 Friday in a football stadium in the Christian conservative stronghold of Mobile, Alabama.
“Now I know how the great Billy Graham felt,” Trump said to cheers.
He told the audience that his memoir, “The Art of the Deal” is his second favorite book. The first, Trump claimed, is the Bible.
Despite Carson’s long-standing support from Christian conservatives, it is not clear that he will be able to trump Trump.
Some evangelical leaders, including Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, are asking their flocks to be a bit more discerning in their growing fervor for Trump.
“Someone who has divorced two wives, someone who has been involved in the casino industry that is predatory of the poor, and yet says that he has nothing to be forgiven of, nothing to apologize for,” Moore previously told CNN. “I think that speaks to someone’s character.”
Carson, who has been a Sunday School teacher and married to the same woman for 40 years, seems to display the values that social conservatives hold most closely.
“He is appealing to Evangelicals because he is not afraid of talking about his faith,” his press secretary said. ” And when he does talk about his faith, it’s not a political talking point for him. It is a real relationship with a real God.”
But regardless of what happens during the rest of the campaign, Carson told the Phoenix crowd that he has come as far as he has by faith.
“All the pundits say it’s impossible,” Carson said Tuesday. “I just said, ‘Lord, if you want me to do it, if you open the doors, I will walk through them.'”