Democrats Put Christian Faith at Center of Midterms

A group of Democratic congressional candidates is making Christian faith a centerpiece of their 2026 midterm campaigns — an unusual strategy for a party whose voters are, on average, far less religious than Republicans. At least a half-dozen candidates for Congress are ordained clergy or studying to become ministers, and they are running in competitive races across Texas, Iowa, Arkansas and Tennessee, according to NPR.

The approach tests whether faith-based messaging can help Democrats reconnect with religious voters in states and districts where religion remains central to public life — and whether it can survive sharp pushback from Republicans who accuse the candidates of weaponizing the pulpit.

Photo illustration: James Talarico and Ken Paxton, Democratic and Republican nominees for U.S. Senate, at their respective state conventions in June 2026. Source photos by Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune.

A Rare Strategy for Democrats

It is rare for Democrats to foreground religion. Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study found that only 28% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults said religion was “very important” in their lives — a figure far below Republicans. Meanwhile, white clergy running for Congress as Democrats are a rarity: since the 1970s, only three have been elected to the federal legislature, while the two Democratic members of Congress who are clergy — Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and Missouri Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver — are both Black, the conservative outlet The Daily Caller noted.

Yet on the campaign trail, these candidates have been invoking biblical teachings as they make the case for policies involving health care, veterans, immigrants and economic opportunity. The field includes a megachurch pastor in Dallas, a Methodist minister in Kansas and two clergy members in Iowa.

Two Visions of Christianity in Texas

The most closely watched test case is in Texas, where the U.S. Senate race pits Democrat James Talarico — a state representative, former middle school teacher and seminarian — against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. Both candidates portray the race as a fight for the soul of America, but they describe a vastly different God, as the Texas Tribune reported.

Talarico, a vocal opponent of Christian nationalism, frames his faith around the biblical command to “love thy neighbor” and the belief that God is on the side of the oppressed and marginalized. Speaking at Brentwood Baptist Church in Houston, he told the congregation: “The real blasphemy is kicking the sick off their healthcare to fund tax cuts for billionaires.”

The comment was a direct rejoinder to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who had said of Talarico at the state Republican convention: “I’ve never seen so much blasphemy from anyone running for office… if he campaigns against God, as he’s been doing, he’s going to hell for sure.”

Paxton, by contrast, casts God as a personal deliverer and protector of conservative values. “I truly believe that God just delivered me, not because I am a great person, because God is sovereign and he does what he wants to do,” he said, referring to surviving a 2023 impeachment on corruption charges. He has described his political fights as “a spiritual battle.”

In Texas, where two-thirds of adults identify as Christian and 45% say religion is “very important” in their lives, the candidates’ contrasting appeals are a direct bid for the state’s large religious electorate.

In the rest of the country, the gap between the party and its voters is stark. A May 2025 poll by Change Research, reported by Religion News Service and cited by the Daily Caller, found that only 25% of religious voters viewed the Democratic Party as friendly toward Christians, compared with 70% who said the same of Republicans. Sixty-one percent believed Democratic candidates were more concerned with promoting a “woke” agenda than solving problems.

Beyond Texas: Pastors on the Ballot

The strategy extends well past the Texas Senate race. In Dallas, the Rev. Frederick Haynes III — who has led the 13,000-member Friendship-West Baptist Church for more than four decades — is the Democratic nominee for U.S. House District 30. He says he was inspired to run after the Texas Legislature redrew the state’s maps, eliminating one of its two predominantly Black congressional districts.

“I’m a Luke 4 Christian because Jesus says the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he’s anointed me to preach good news to the poor,” Haynes said, adding that Jesus “prioritizes those who’ve been made poor by systems.”

In Iowa, state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, an ordained Lutheran pastor, is running for the 3rd Congressional District, while the Rev. Lindsay James, a Presbyterian chaplain and four-term state representative, is the Democratic nominee in the 2nd. Both have tied their faith to secular concerns like health care and public health funding. James said she was inspired to run for Congress after lawmakers cut federal healthcare spending by nearly a trillion dollars. “It’s about showing up for people. It’s about listening without judgment,” she said. “It’s about offering hope. And it’s about telling the truth.”

Other clergy candidates include Robb Ryerse, a former pastor in Arkansas who founded a church welcoming LGBT members, and Anna Golladay, a former United Methodist associate pastor in Tennessee who was dismissed in 2019 after officiating a same-sex wedding.

Republican Pushback

Republicans have moved quickly to frame the candidates as religious impostors. Joe Mitchell, the Republican opposing James in Iowa, captured the attack line at the conservative Family Leadership Summit this summer: “I call them PINOs — Pastors in Name Only — because they’re not real pastors. They don’t profess the true gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Everett Jackson, Haynes’ opponent in Dallas, made a similar charge: “Freddie Haynes has politicized the gospel and therefore misled his parishioners.”

In Iowa, Rep. Zach Nunn also questioned Trone Garriott’s judgment over an incident from her seminary internship in which she assisted at a wedding for two people who said they were Satanists — a story she recounts publicly to illustrate the power of scripture. “It’s a story about the power of scripture,” she said. Paxton, meanwhile, has accused Talarico of holding views “antithetical to historical Christian views,” including saying God is nonbinary and that supporting the oil and gas industry is un-Christian, charges Talarico dismisses as taken out of context.

A Long History, an Uncertain Bet

The alliance between conservative Christianity and the Republican Party is not accidental. Janine Giordano Drake, a professor of history at Indiana University, traces it to “the late 1970s and early 1980s in the formation of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition.” Heath Carter, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, said the Christian right has long “felt that they have the momentum, the kind of wind in their sails, and that God is with them.”

The Democratic candidates are betting that a different kind of faith politics — one centered on pluralism and social justice — can resonate with voters who feel that tradition has been distorted. Voters at a Houston town hall for Talarico, many wearing “Love Thy Neighbor” T-shirts, appeared receptive. “I like the way he doesn’t use Christianity as a weapon,” said volunteer Madison Vega.

But the strategy carries real risk. Not all voters welcome religion on the stump. Kristin Kott, a Houston voter whose top concerns are schools and flood recovery, said she would be “turned off” by religious appeals. “I don’t think religion should play into government and politics at all,” she said. “I thought the country was founded on that.”

What to Watch

Whether the bet pays off will be measured in November, particularly in the Texas Senate race, which Republicans view as key to holding their narrow Senate majority. Talarico himself insists his message transcends partisanship, arguing that “Jesus is far more radical than any political party.”

For Democrats, the broader question is whether candidates who speak the language of faith can reclaim a segment of the religious electorate long assumed to be out of reach — or whether they will alienate parts of their own secular base in the attempt. These clergy candidates suggest the party is willing to find out.