Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will kick off the 2020 election year with a massive event for his re-election campaign’s effort to shore up support among evangelical Christians in Miami on Friday amid escalating confrontations with Iran.Trump, a day after directing an airstrike in Baghdad that killed the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, will travel from vacationing at Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach to Miami. There he’ll visit a bilingual congregation megachurch, Ministerio Internacional El Rey Jesús, to launch his campaign’s latest coalition, “Evangelicals for Trump,” which is aimed at energizing the crucial voting block leading up to Election Day.Before heading to Miami, the president issued a defense of his order to kill the top Iranian general, accusing him of “plotting imminent and sinister attacks” on American diplomats and military personnel.Trump will shift gears Friday night, looking to energize and build up evangelical support at an event that is expected to attract thousands. The president launching “Evangelicals for Trump” also comes weeks after the president clashed with evangelical publication Christianity Today over an op-ed calling for his removal from office.Mark Galli, the publication’s editor-in-chief and author of the editorial, wrote in December that the findings of the impeachment inquiry are “not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.”Galli adds: “That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.”The president fired back, calling “Christianity Today,” a “far-left magazine” that is “doing poorly.”The campaign maintains that the “Evangelicals for Trump” event had long been planned before the scathing editorial.Trump’s re-election team hopes the new coalition will help promote aspects of the president’s record that will energize those already converted and sway evangelicals who may be on the fence by focusing on his record of conservative judicial appointments, including two Supreme Court justices, and his pro-life record.”The President draws tremendous support from all corners of the religious community and it’s important to engage with them,” Trump campaign director of coalitions Hannah Castillo told ABC News.In the coming months, the campaign is planning an even larger investment in boosting religious support for the president by also launching several other coalitions, including “Catholics for Trump” and “Jewish Voices for Trump.”Christians and Catholics, especially among white voters, supported the president in significant numbers in 2016, and the campaign hopes these new coalitions help repeat those results. About eight in 10 self-identified white evangelical Christians said they voted for Trump in 2016, according to Pew Research Center.But while white Catholics supported Trump over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by a 23-point margin, Hispanic Catholics backed Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin, 67% to 26%, according to Pew.Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
