3 Democratic pastors in Iowa are running for Congress, a snapshot of a national trend

The Lutheran pastor and state senator is one of three clergy members in Iowa running as Democrats for the U.S. House of Representatives.

After years of white Christians overwhelmingly supporting Republican Donald Trump, a striking number of clergy are currently running for political office as Democrats. While James Talarico, a 36-year-old Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seminarian who recently won his Texas primary for U.S. Senate, has gained national attention, he's hardly the only progressive candidate with a theological education this midterm season.

“Because there’s been the tendency to define Christianity as very conservative and with a Christian nationalist lens, I think you are seeing people on the Democratic side saying, ‘Wait a minute. There are different ways to think about how our faith informs our policy,’" said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute.

Democrats' next challenge is to figure out how to talk about faith for the long haul in a party that's more religiously diverse than Republicans and has a greater number of voters who aren't religious at all.

Talking about religion

Trone Garriott, ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has done extensive interfaith work, something she says has made her a better Lutheran. It’s also informed how she campaigns, sliding seamlessly into a Friday night Lenten fish fry at a Catholic church then going straight to an Iftar dinner at a mosque down the road.

Despite high-profile politicians including former President Joe Biden, a lifelong Catholic Democrat, being candid about their faith, Trone Garriott thinks part of the reason many Democrats have failed to engage certain religious groups is a discomfort in talking meaningfully about it.

“A lot of folks just don’t have the practice to do it in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s imposing oneself on others or being dismissive of other perspectives,” she said. “Folks tend to fall back into this, ‘Well, everyone’s basically the same.’ We’re different and those differences are important.”

But Trone Garriott senses Democrats are now seeing that glossing over religious differences isn’t the answer. “That left a vacuum that the religious right has filled. And there are a lot of people now realizing that it is really important to speak about these issues from the perspective of faith and claim their faith," she said.

Talarico, a Texas state representative who reaped national attention last summer after appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast, has done just that.

“If we have to force people to put up a poster, to me that means that we have a dead religion,” he said of his opposition to a Texas bill requiring that public schools display the Ten Commandments.

Deckman argues what makes Talarico unique among white Democrats is his comfort in talking about the Bible. But it's also made him a target for conservatives, particularly his theological rationale for supporting abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights.

“He would be one that I would say, ‘Wait a minute. You are misrepresenting the word of God,’” said Bob Vander Plaats, the politically influential president and CEO of the conservative Christian group The Family Leader. “The GOP has been vastly more consistent in their proximity to God’s word, versus using a verse here and there to try to back up a position.”

Religious voters at the polls

In the 2024 election, Trump once again won the support of about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christian voters, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters, while the same percentage of Black Protestant voters went for Democrat Kamala Harris. About 7 in 10 nonreligious voters supported Harris.

Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he attributes that lack of support from certain religious voters to messaging within the party.

“We stopped talking about our why,” he said. “When that happens, I think you lose your authenticity. And sometimes that means that people stop believing that you are going to work as hard as you’re committed to doing.”

Amid speculation he will run for president in 2028, Beshear, a deacon for his Disciples of Christ church, hopes to communicate his motivations with his forthcoming book, “Go and Do Likewise: How We Heal a Broken Country,” a reference to the Bible's Parable of the Good Samaritan.

“My faith is is my authentic why. It’s what drives me to try to better this world," he said.

For some, the overwhelming support for Trump among white Christians has caused them to look inward. “I put that on us as pastors, that maybe we haven’t done a great job of explaining the faith to people,” said Clint Twedt-Ball, a minister running for Congress in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District.

From pews to halls of power

Black clergy running as Democrats is not new. U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., is a Baptist senior pastor and the late Rev. Jesse Jackson was a two-time presidential candidate. There are fewer examples of white clergy doing the same, despite the obvious skills, like preaching, that translate to campaigning.

Both Twedt-Ball, a third-generation United Methodist pastor and founder of the nonprofit Matthew 25, and Lindsay James, a PCUSA chaplain who is also running in Iowa’s 2nd district, said the 2016 election was a catalyst for their political involvement.

The rise of pastors in politics extends beyond congressional races.

Rae Huang, also a PCUSA minister and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is challenging Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Huang said her candor about being a pastor has sparked questions from voters.

"'Are you somebody who is homophobic? Are you somebody who is gonna try and create a theocracy in our city?' Because that’s all they’ve known," she recalled. She sees an opportunity to give voters a positive vision of her theology. "Religion doesn’t have to be that space of oppression, that space where we have been suppressing voices rather than uplifting and liberating.”

Finding hope through faith

After he was elected New York City’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani appeared on comedian Trevor Noah’s podcast and argued the importance in politics of having the imagination for change — a theme Noah linked to religion.

“Religion is declining, but it’s declining in areas where people are particularly left-leaning or progressive,” Noah said. “One of the things that faith requires of you is the ability to believe that this current state that you’re in is not the end — there is a possibility that something can be greater.”

Mamdani, who is not clergy but is vocal about his faith, agreed. “It’s often in houses of worship where New Yorkers still have that trust," he said. “It’s by and large lost when it comes to politics.”

Huang, who the Los Angeles Times speculated could be “L.A.'s Mamdani,” echoed this sentiment.

“We’re called and being invited to be prophetic, to be forward thinking, to actually grow our imagination," she said. “The religious right has a hold over American culture. I think that’s changing. I think progressive Christianity is beginning to stand up."

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.