White evangelical support of Donald Trump is at an all-time high, according to a new study. The poll, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute in March, found that a full 75 percent of white evangelicals surveyed had a positive opinion of Donald Trump, compared to just 22 percent holding an unfavorable view. Among white evangelical men, that number is even higher — 81 percent — while 71 percent of white evangelical women also view Trump favorably. The poll has been tracking Trump’s ratings since he first became a Republican primary candidate in March 2015.

Given that 81 percent of white evangelical voters voted for Trump, these latest findings suggest that the well-document turmoil of Trump’s presidency has done little to dissuade his core supporters. Nor are his supporters necessarily banking on the only Republican option out there: According to the poll, 69 percent of white evangelicals would prefer Trump, rather than another Republican candidate, as the 2020 presidential nominee,

These numbers are particularly striking in the light of a number of debates being carried out among academics and pastoral leaders within the evangelical community. Earlier this month, for example, a group of progressive evangelicals met in Lynchburg, Virginia, to protest the solidly pro-Trump rhetoric f Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, while, just this week, a group of 50 evangelical leaders met at Wheaton College to discuss the future of evangelicalism in the light of Donald Trump’s presidency.

“[T]he reason we are getting together is the 2016 election and the role that white evangelicals played in electing Trump,” evangelical author Katelyn Beaty told the Washington Post, adding that the meeting provided an opportunity to ask “how have we gone wrong and how can we repair what’s clearly broken.”

But that sense of ambivalence doesn’t seem to have reached rank-and-file white evangelical voters. During the 2016 primaries, for example, Trump’s favorability rating among white evangelicals fluctuated at around 30 percent (reaching an all-time low of 24 percent in March 2014). It steadily increased after Trump won the nomination. Since the inauguration — when Trump’s approval was at a then-all-time high of 74 percent — his ratings have dipped somewhat (to a low of 68 percent) but consistently rebounded.

For comparison: Consider the case of white evangelical support for George W. Bush in mid-2001. According to documentation provided by the Public Religion Research Institute, white evangelicals supported Bush during his presidency in similar numbers as Trump (79 percent support to Trump’s 75). But Bush’s overall favorability at that time was at 61 percent, compared to Trump’s 42 percent. In other words: today, the difference between the attitude of white evangelicals and the public at large is a staggering 33 points; the difference was much smaller during the Bush administration.

How has Trump managed to hold onto this support? According to Public Religion Research Institute founder and CEO Robert Jones, author of The End of White Christian America, there are two major factors in Trump’s continued success among evangelicals.

The first, he says, is pure partisanship.

“We’ve seen this before,” Jones says. When Mitt Romney, for example, won the Republican nomination in 2012, white evangelicals were initially cautious about the candidate, who is Mormon. But “as soon as he became the Republican nominee, his approval jumped.”

In general, Jones says, white evangelicals vote by about 4:1 for the Republican candidate, whoever it is — numbers that played out in Trump’s election. “Republican partisanship is sort of baked into evangelical identity in a way it’s been since Reagan,” Jones said.

But, he said, Trump’s continued success since the inauguration, as well as voters’ support for him over another potential Republican challenger, speak to a wider change in how white evangelicals vote.

“The ‘values voters’ have all but dissipated,” said Jones, referring to the evangelical voting bloc that stressed the importance of a candidate’s perceived moral character.

During the Clinton years, Jones pointed out, evangelicals treated Clinton’s dalliances as a fundamental character flaw. Now, however, the evangelical political discourse is markedly different: “[They believe] ‘The ends justify the means’ — it’s a very transactional and utilitarian political ethic” — the goal of which is to “elect a candidate [evangelicals] believe is going to carry water for [them].”

Just look, Perkins said, at the way the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, a major figure within the evangelical world, used a popular golf euphemism for a “do-over” — a “mulligan” — to imply that Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels should be ignored.

Republican partisanship may be a defining feature of white evangelicalism, in other words. But the rhetoric used to defend Republican candidates, from morality-based “values voting” to a purely utilitarian “elect our guy” approach, has shifted drastically.

As Jones put it: “Evangelicals have completely turned their political ethics on its head.”