{"id":14237,"date":"2026-11-06T20:42:30","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T20:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=14237"},"modified":"2026-11-06T20:42:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T20:42:30","slug":"democratic-candidates-with-a-christian-message-helped-flip-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=14237","title":{"rendered":"Democratic candidates with a Christian message helped flip Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"
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U.S. Sen.-elect James Talarico (D-TX) speaks during a midterm election night event at the Long Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday in Austin, Texas. Talarico faced off against Republican Senate candidate, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in one of the most closely watched races this election season. Getty Images via AFP-Yonhap<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Clergy members and other Democratic candidates with an unapologetically Christian message to \u201clove your neighbor\u201d helped their party flip control of Congress.<\/p>\n

It was a striking midterm victory that demonstrated the strength of the religious left as a counter to the stalwart evangelical support for President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis attempt to corner the market on Christianity by evangelicals was repudiated,\u201d said Brian Kaylor, a Baptist pastor and editor of a progressive faith and politics site.<\/p>\n

Instead, American mainline Protestantism, with its less-strident theology, took the election spotlight.<\/p>\n

Seminarian James Talarico in Texas, megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton in Kansas and Iowa ministers Sarah Trone Garriott and Lindsay James flipped key seats in the U.S. Senate and House. They\u2019re part of the mainline Presbyterian, Methodist and Lutheran branches with moderate or progressive beliefs.<\/p>\n

Unlike the nationalists wanting America to privilege a particular Christian worldview in public life, the mainline candidates in keeping with their Christian values backed church-state separation and sought common ground across religions, Kaylor said.<\/p>\n

“There were so many people in our country who felt so strongly that what was happening in D.C. was not moral,\u201d Hamilton told The Associated Press. “It didn\u2019t reflect our national values.”<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why he and the other candidates ran, he said, and why they were elected.<\/p>\n

Mainline denominations have historically been part of the country\u2019s civic establishment as the church home of most presidents and other elites. But membership has been sliding for decades. Despite that shift, the wins show these Protestants can still have significant influence \u2014 though not with white evangelicals.<\/p>\n

Across the board, white evangelical Protestants stayed consistent in their overwhelming midterm support for Republicans. Most Protestants who identify as \u201cliberal\u201d or \u201cmoderate,\u201d about 7 in 10, voted for Democrats, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of roughly 100,000 midterm voters.<\/p>\n

The four mainline candidates also got a big boost from voters who reject organized religion. At least 7 in 10 religiously unaffiliated voters supported Democratic Senate and House candidates in Texas, Kansas and Iowa, The AP Voter Poll showed.<\/p>\n

Others said being a progressive pastor wasn\u2019t the prime factor in these victories.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I hear a story about the Democratic Party scouting out pastors to run in 2028 based on Talarico and Hamilton, I think they\u2019ve totally missed the upshot from this election,\u201d said Ryan Burge, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies religious demographics. \u201cIt\u2019s about economic issues. It\u2019s about disdain for Trump. It\u2019s about high prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talarico takes Texas as critique of his Christianity continues<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the longtime GOP stronghold of Texas, Talarico flipped a U.S. Senate seat \u2014 the first election in 30-plus years that Democrats won statewide races \u2014 by defeating Republican Ken Paxton, an evangelical.<\/p>\n

Voters also ousted Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican who chaired Trump\u2019s Religious Liberty Commission and declared, \u201cThere is no separation of church and state.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Talarico\u2019s acceptance speech, the 37-year-old state legislator recounted how his grandfather, a Baptist preacher, taught him about Jesus, a \u201cbarefoot rabbi\u201d who commanded people to love God and neighbor. And not just the neighbor who looks, prays or votes like him, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seminarian and former middle school teacher said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo thousand years ago, when the people at the top hurt his neighbors, that barefoot rabbi didn\u2019t stay in his room and pray. He walked into the seat of power, and he flipped over the tables of injustice. \u2026 Texas, it\u2019s time to start flipping tables,” Talarico said.<\/p>\n

A longtime Texas Trump supporter and Southern Baptist pastor, the Rev. Robert Jeffress, maintains that the pluralistic religion promoted by Talarico and other candidates is not actually Christianity, a criticism raised by others during their campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to choose a religion that\u2019s nice and warm and fuzzy, whether it\u2019s built on truth or not,\u201d said Jeffress, who leads First Baptist Church in Dallas. \u201cWhat James Talarico believes, according to the words of Jesus, is not true.\u201d<\/p>\n

He attributes the Democrats\u2019 success to a trifecta of inflation, the Iran war and \u201cless than ideal candidates.\u201d Jeffress also suspects many evangelicals stayed home.<\/p>\n

White evangelical Protestants made up a slightly smaller share of the electorate than in 2024, when Trump was running for president: 21% in 2024, compared with 17% in 2026, The AP Voter Poll showed. That could be due to lower turnout among white evangelicals or higher turnout among other groups. About 2 in 10 voted for Talarico in Texas and Hamilton in Kansas.<\/p>\n

Kansas pastor candidate says kindness doesn’t require religion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Burge, the professor who studies religious demographics, asserts that the Democratic clergy members who won were strong candidates but also benefited from very favorable political winds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you ran Adam Hamilton in 2024, he\u2019s beat by double digits and we\u2019re not having this conversation,\u201d Burge said.<\/p>\n

Hamilton, pastor of the nation\u2019s largest United Methodist congregation, called for \u201cdecency\u201d in politics, drawing on Jesus\u2019 Golden Rule in his victory speech: \u201cDo unto others as you would have them do unto you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t not talk about my faith. It\u2019s just, it\u2019s my life. It\u2019s what I eat, sleep, drink and breathe,\u201d he told the AP. But being religious isn\u2019t required to follow biblical injunctions “to do justice, to love kindness.”<\/p>\n

While campaigning for Hamilton\u2019s Republican opponent, Sen. Roger Marshall, Vice President JD Vance questioned Hamilton\u2019s religiosity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so ridiculous that there was no reason to even respond to it,\u201d said Hamilton, who welcomes a conversation with Vance and other critics about faith and theology.<\/p>\n

Iowa pastor candidates prioritize coalition building<\/strong><\/p>\n

Democrats Sarah Trone Garriott and Lindsay James, who flipped U.S. House seats in Iowa, didn\u2019t have political ambitions when they pursued ordination.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s 2016 election sparked James\u2019 involvement. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) chaplain sees her ministry experience \u2014 from church potlucks to the pews \u2014 as a strength when connecting with all voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent time bringing people together across difference,\u201d she told the AP in March.<\/p>\n

Trone Garriott, a state senator and a pastor in the mainline Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, thinks the religious right\u2019s high profile in national politics has made some progressive Christians wary of sharing their faith publicly.<\/p>\n

But she sees the power in diverse coalition building. In her acceptance speech, she evoked hope and the power of loving your neighbor. \u201cWhen people come together on our common ground, we will do powerful things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Midterm successes for other Christian candidates<\/strong><\/p>\n

Among Republicans, clergy candidates for Congress also prevailed, including Mark Harris of North Carolina, a Southern Baptist pastor, and Tim Walberg of Michigan, a former pastor.<\/p>\n

Black Protestants vote overwhelmingly Democratic and have long comfortably talked faith and politics in a way white mainliners have not. This year, victorious Democrats included at least two Black clergy members \u2014 the Rev. Frederick Haynes III, a Baptist from Texas, and U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, a United Methodist minister from Missouri.<\/p>\n

In North Carolina, Democrat LaKesha Womack unseated a Republican incumbent in the U.S. House. She is an ordained deacon in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, a historically Black Protestant denomination.<\/p>\n

Womack told the AP her faith prompts her to advocate for \u201cpolicies that address poverty and immigration and making sure everybody has access to healthcare.\u201d And she defends religious freedom for all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the white Christian nationalists almost taking over the narrative of what it means to be a Christian, I think there are a lot of people of faith in this country who wanted to reclaim that narrative,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Womack said that Democrats shouldn\u2019t read too much into this year\u2019s clergy victories.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we should go out and try to recruit ministers to become politicians if that\u2019s not what they\u2019re called to do,\u201d she said. \u201cIt has to be authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n

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U.S. Sen.-elect James Talarico (D-TX) speaks during a midterm election night event at the Long Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday in Austin, Texas. Talarico faced off against Republican Senate candidate, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in one of the most closely watched races this election season. Getty Images via AFP-Yonhap Clergy members and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","category-trending-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t