As Ron DeSantis wrapped up a 12-stop campaign tour that began in an Iowa evangelical church and ended here in a South Carolina convention center, dozens of pastors met backstage to pray for the presidential candidate. Later, to the 1,500 people in the auditorium, DeSantis closed out his speech with a paraphrased Bible verse: “I will fight the good fight, I will finish the race, and I will keep the faith.”
The governor’s religious rhetoric and hard-charging policies are at the center of his outreach to white evangelicals — an important voting bloc in the early GOP nominating contests. When it comes to his own Catholicism, DeSantis is more guarded, rarely mentioning his specific faith practices.
Both have publicly clashed with Catholic bishops: DeSantis over immigration and the death penalty; Biden over abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. The current president, though, speaks often about being Catholic. He is known to wear a rosary and is regularly photographed attending Mass — in contrast to DeSantis, who is intensely private.
Sullivan said she attended the baptism of DeSantis’ older daughter at the church. The parish also was a polling place in 2018 and where DeSantis cast his own ballot when he was first elected governor. “You start to question things that are unjust, like ‘Why did this have to happen?’” DeSantis said. “You just have to have faith that there’s a plan in place, trust in God, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to have a life without challenges and without heartbreak.”
In 2022, DeSantis attended Mass and met with most of Florida’s bishops, who urged him to reconsider his objection to unaccompanied minors, which the Catholic Church cares for in one of its Florida shelters. For now, the DeSantis team appears to be focusing their faith outreach on white evangelicals, who vote overwhelmingly Republican. Catholics are swing voters. Never Back Down, the DeSantis super PAC, has brought on adviser David Polyansky in part to coordinate faith outreach — efforts he also led for Ted Cruz, who won the 2016 Iowa caucus thanks to evangelicals.
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