Who are evangelical voters supporting in the 2008 primary season? The facile assumption is to look for them in the Huckabee camp. No doubt many are to be found there. Consensus has it that conservative Protestants got Huckabee his win in the Iowa caucuses. And since then the choice between Huckabee and Romney sure went Huckabee’s way more often than not. But the research on conservative Protestant politics makes me doubt that the story ends with Huckabee. [...]

I agree with Michael Lindsay that Mike Huckabee exhibits many of the qualities of a “cosmopolitan” evangelical. And yet it is impossible for journalists to talk about the second man from Hope without mentioning his populist rhetoric. This combination of economic and religious populism sets Mike Huckabee apart from the rest of the Republican pack. Yet Huckabee’s marriage of cultural conservatism and economic egalitarianism makes sense in light of the social and cultural attitudes of American evangelicals.