TOPEKA — Republican Gov. Sam Brownback predicted Wednesday that GOP voters will eventually rally around Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential race in the same way people sometimes rally around military leaders during a national crisis.

“It’s not unlike times in the past where a military leader would step up and say, ‘The country’s going down. I’ll step up and take charge. I’m going to fix the system.’ And in the modern era, it’s been the businessman that takes on that,” Brownback said.

Although Brownback endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio during the Kansas caucuses, he has since said he would support Trump, who is now the party’s presumptive nominee, in the general election.

But many other national Republicans are holding back, at least for now, including both former Presidents Bush and U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan. And according to national reports, a large number of Christian conservative voters are struggling with the idea of supporting a billionaire real estate tycoon, showman, frequent guest at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion and current owner of gambling casinos.

The Washington Post’s Tom Hamburger wrote this week that Trump has won endorsements from some evangelical groups, most recently the American Renewal Project, but other faith groups have urged their followers to reject Trump for what they called his “vulgar racial and religious demagoguery.”

In the primaries, however, surveys have shown Trump winning over evangelical voters. Steve Mitchell, CEO of a Michigan-based polling and consulting firm, wrote about that phenomenon recently in RealClear Politics, saying that for many, Trump is seen as a kind of “messianic” figure, in the sense of being a “liberator” or “defender.”

“Although certainly not Christ-like,
Trump is perceived to be strong and
bold; a leader that will help
evangelicals navigate a world they
believe is too often adrift and too
different from what they want.”

Brownback offered much the same characterization.

“You’ve had a real difficult economic season for many, many Americans, and generally after you have a recession followed by, here, very little recovery out of it, you get a populist response,” he said.

Polls currently show Clinton leading Trump nationally by seven to 11 percentage points, and the online prediction market Pivit Politics currently gives Clinton a 70 percent chance of becoming the next president. Still, another big concern for Republicans is the effect Trump could have further down the ballot, in congressional and state races.

Voter turnout is typically higher in presidential years than in off-year elections because national races draw more interest and enthusiasm than state legislative contests. So if big parts of the Republican base are not enthusiastic about their party’s presidential nominee, the fear is that many will stay home, which could drag down other Republicans, especially those in vulnerable districts.

Brownback, however, said he sees the same thing happening on the Democratic side, and the election could come down to a contest over which candidate is the least unacceptable.

In fact, a recent McClatchy-Marist national poll found that one-quarter of the voters who support Clinton’s Democratic rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, said they would not support Clinton if she becomes the nominee.

“I think that there’s danger that a lot of the electorate could sit this one out, on both sides of the aisle,” he said. “I mean, what’s the enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton? But that’s what you’re staring at now as the probability.”