In 2016 Trump’s strategists thought the thrice-married serial sexual predator ruthless real estate magnate, who didn’t have a spiritual bone in his body, needed some credibility with evangelical voters. Therefore, they selected the straight as an arrow evangelical Mike Pence as his running mate.

During the 2016 presidential campaign Pence played his part perfectly, standing by Trump’s side, looking with reverence and awe at his boss, as profanities, vulgarities and malevolence emanated from his sphincter-shaped mouth.

Trump won with Pence as his running mate, but he would have won had he chosen Stormy Daniels. Evangelicals don’t give a shit about being good Christians, and they don’t expect the presidential candidate they vote for to be Christ-like as long as he shares their hatred of feminists, liberals, the LGBT community and racial minorities. Evangelicals didn’t care how many porn stars Trump had sex with or how many business partners he defrauded as long as he appointed conservative judges and attempted to turn our democracy into a white Christian nationalist theocracy.

There are a dozen Republican presidential candidates, including Pence, trying to catch up with the overwhelming favorite, Donald Trump. Pence is vehemently against abortion, LGBT rights, climate change, and women’s rights, you’d think he would be running neck-and-neck with Trump, but in most polls, he’s lagging far behind Trump and DeSantis. In fact, he’s yet to poll in the double digits in any poll.

Evangelicals prefer the faux Christian Trump over the genuine evangelical Pence; Trump’s racist and vengeful rhetoric resonates more with them than Pence’s civil Republican orthodoxy.

Trump will win the Republican nomination in a landslide, without an evangelical as his running mate. He’s learned that his evangelical base feeds of his anger and vitriol, and he will probably choose a firebrand crazy woman like Kari Lake as his vice president.