Donald Trump once said, probably correctly, that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing some of his voters. Chief among them are white evangelical Christians. While some pundits tried to argue shortly after the election that Trump’s supporters were only nominal Christians, the data do not support that position; subsequent surveys have shown that Cruz voters actually have a better opinion of him than his own primary voters.
This isn’t because members of the religious right have any illusions about his character; it is because they think their values are being threatened to the point where their only alternatives are King Cyrus and the Benedict option. That sounds ridiculous to me, and probably to you, but while there certainly is reason to doubt their intelligence, there is no reason to question their sincerity.
So how can the Democrats peel off some of this group? Realistically, they probably can’t. For the sake of the peace and unity of the country, however, the nominee would be wise to make a display of being sympathetic to them, and to try to reassure them that their values are not under attack.