But even before Iowa, there were indicators that Trump’s stock was on the rise among white evangelicals. In PRRI polling in November 2015, a majority (56 percent) of white evangelical Protestant voters nationwide held an unfavorable view of Trump. But by January 2016, a majority (53 percent) said they now held a favorable view of him. Most importantly, in the first primary contest in a southern state, Trump bested Cruz among South Carolina white evangelicals by eight percentage points (34 percent vs. 26 percent, respectively).

The best explanation for this unlikely consolidation of white evangelical Protestant support behind Trump is that his appeal to “Make America Great Again” resonates more deeply and powerfully with the group’s anxieties than a checklist of culture war issues or an appeal to shared religious identity. A look at the South Carolina exit polls and some recent national polling indeed paints a portrait of a worried and wistful group. In South Carolina, Trump’s biggest margins were among voters who said the top quality they wanted in a candidate was someone who “tells it like it is” (+70 points) and “can bring change” (+26 points). And Trump won by double digits among voters who said illegal immigrants should be deported (+23 points), who were angry with the government (+20 points), who believed that Muslims should be banned from entering the country (+18 points), and who were very worried about the economy (+13 points).

The American Values Survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, where I’m the CEO, found that heightened anxieties about cultural change and economic worries are strikingly prevalent among white evangelicals today. Two-thirds of white evangelicals say that immigrants are a burden to the country because they take American jobs, housing, and health care; and nearly six in 10 say it bothers them when they come into contact with immigrants who speak little or no English. Nearly three-quarters of white evangelicals say that the values of Islam are incompatible with American values and way of life. More than six in 10 believe that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities. On the economic front, eight in 10 white evangelicals believe the country is still in an economic recession today. And most notably—in a question that demonstrates the importance of the last word in Trump’s campaign slogan—more than seven in 10 white evangelical Protestants say that American society and way of life has changed for the worse since the 1950s.

These findings are measures of perceptions, but there is also empirical evidence that the cultural world of conservative white Christians has been losing its central place in the country. For example, it is hard to overstate the symbolic power of the national shift to majority support for same-sex marriage in recent years, punctuated by the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states. White evangelical Protestants are the group most opposed to same-sex marriage, and they clearly lost this battle, both legally and culturally. Beyond that, white Christians have in fact been steadily shrinking as a proportion of the population over the past few decades. Today white Christians make up just 45 percent of the country, and religiously unaffiliated Americans have become the largest group in the religious landscape. Even in places like Iowa and South Carolina, the proportion of white Christians has shrunk significantly since the beginning of the Obama era. These shifting cultural and demographic realities are certainly fueling the anxieties of white evangelical Protestants.