Democratic candidates using faith in congressional campaigns are challenging their party’s traditionally cautious relationship with religion, invoking biblical teachings on healthcare, poverty, immigration and public service in competitive races across Texas and Iowa.
At least half a dozen of the party’s candidates are ordained clergy, while others are studying for the ministry. Their campaigns have prompted Republican opponents to question whether they are genuine pastors, and whether their interpretation of Christianity belongs in government.
James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the US Senate in Texas, recently addressed worshippers at Brentwood Baptist Church in Houston. A state representative and former middle-school teacher who is studying at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, he told the congregation he was speaking “not as a candidate, but as a fellow Christian”.
Talarico recalled that his grandfather had been a Baptist preacher and said Christianity was a simple religion, while acknowledging that faith offered no easy answers to the country’s political turmoil.
“Sometimes we see the world most clearly through our tears,” he said. “If your heart is breaking as you watch what’s happening to our beloved country, it means you still have a heart. So blessed are you who weep.”
Religion is less central to the lives of Democratic voters than it is to Republicans. A 2023-24 religious study cited in the campaign debate found that 28 per cent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults said religion was very important in their lives.
Talarico has sought to distinguish his Christian faith from any attempt to impose religion on the state. At a Democratic town hall in Houston, he told supporters: “My faith is central in my life. But I also know that the most dangerous form of government is theocracy. Because the only thing worse than a tyrant is a tyrant who thinks they’re on a mission from God.”
He is an outspoken critic of Christian nationalism, a term used for the belief that the United States is, or should be, a Christian nation that promotes Christianity. He has also criticised the Trump administration over what he described as the influence of that ideology in the Department of Defence.
Republican attacks have become part of Talarico’s message. Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick accused him of blasphemy at a state Republican convention and said he would “go to hell” if he campaigned against God.
Talarico responded by arguing that the real blasphemy was removing healthcare from sick people to fund tax cuts for billionaires.
At his Houston town hall, nearly 700 people attended, with many wearing T-shirts or carrying signs bearing the slogan “Love Thy Neighbor”. Some supporters said his approach made Christianity feel less divisive and less like a political weapon.
Others were more wary. One voter canvassed by a Democratic volunteer said she would be turned off by religion being linked to policy, adding that she did not believe it should play any role in government or politics.
Faith-based campaigns in Texas and Iowa
In Dallas, the Democratic nominee for the 30th congressional district is Frederick Haynes, who has led the 13,000-member Friendship-West Baptist Church for more than 40 years.
Haynes says he entered the race after the Texas legislature redistricted the state and removed one of its two predominantly Black congressional districts. He describes himself as a “Luke 4 Christian”, referring to a passage in which Jesus speaks of preaching good news to the poor and setting captives free.
“He prioritises those who’ve been made poor by systems,” Haynes said. “Set the captives free. Heal those who are broken.”
He presents his campaign as an attempt to bring concern for poor and marginalised people into the legislative process. At an interfaith forum in Dallas, focused on housing, affordability and voting rights, he said he had spent his ministry “on the outside” fighting what was happening “on the inside”.
Haynes’s Republican opponent, businessman Everett Jackson, has questioned his religious sincerity, saying the pastor had politicised the gospel and misled his congregation.
The forum brought together Christian leaders from Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal churches, as well as Muslims. One supporter said solidarity with progressive Christian groups had helped him respond to Islamophobia in Texas.
In Iowa, Sarah Trone Garriott is combining a political career with ordained ministry. The Democratic candidate for the state’s third congressional district is a Lutheran pastor and recently served as an interim minister at Grace Lutheran Church.
In a sermon on the parables of the mustard seed, yeast and hidden treasure, she told worshippers: “The Kingdom of Heaven challenges what we have come to expect or learned to accept.”
She has framed government as a calling to help those who are overlooked, drawing on the parable of the Good Samaritan. “Everyone is your neighbour,” she said. “Anyone who is overlooked and left behind and forgotten. That’s who you were called to help. And that is the calling of government.”
Her Republican opponent, Representative Zach Nunn, has criticised her over an incident from her seminary internship in which she helped at a wedding for two people who said they were Satanists. He argued that the story showed she was out of touch with ordinary Christians.
Trone Garriott defended her decision and said she recounts the episode to illustrate the power of scripture, which she believes spoke to the couple and to her.
Lindsay James, a Presbyterian chaplain and four-term state representative, is the Democratic nominee for Iowa’s second congressional district. At a county fair in Waverly, she discussed public health funding and Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement with voters.
James links those issues to her work as a chaplain, saying the role taught her the importance of listening without judgement, offering hope and telling the truth. She was inspired to run after federal healthcare spending was cut, putting thousands of people in her district at risk of losing coverage, she said.
Her Republican opponent, Joe Mitchell, has attacked both James and Trone Garriott over their positions on transgender rights and their understanding of Christianity. At a conservative evangelical summit, he labelled them “Pinos” — “Pastors in Name Only” — and said they did not profess what he called the true gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Republican candidates in the Texas and Iowa contests have similarly presented themselves as defenders of more traditional Christian teachings on gender and family, while challenging the Democratic candidates’ religious credentials.
For the Democrats, the central argument is that faith can inform public service without turning government into a theocracy. James has invoked Martin Luther King Jr’s interpretation of the Good Samaritan, saying the moral duty was not only to help the injured person but also to repair the dangerous road that caused people to be harmed.
For these candidates, that collective responsibility is the purpose of government — and the election will test whether voters in Texas and Iowa agree that their religious convictions belong in public life.
