Sarah Trone Garriott, an Iowa state senator and Lutheran minister, has never shied away from putting faith at the center of her political campaigns. This year, she’s part of an unprecedented wave of Democratic candidates doing the same—and betting that Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has opened a door they can walk through.
More than a dozen faith leaders are running as Democrats for federal and state offices in 2026, far more than in recent cycles, according to Doug Pagitt, a pastor who runs Vote Common Good, a progressive Christian political group. They include Alaska congressional candidate Matt Schultz, a Presbyterian pastor, and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian.
Their goal: peel away some of the Christian voters who have long gravitated to the Republican column—and who delivered Trump 83% of white evangelical support in 2024, the highest on record.
The Immigration Opening
Trump’s second-term immigration policies, particularly the aggressive crackdown that has drawn images of federal agents and military deployments into blue-state cities, have created an opening Democrats believe they can exploit.
Days after Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, Schultz took the pulpit at his Anchorage church to call it “murder.”
“These are the fruits of this administration: murder and tears and loss and grief,” he told Reuters.
Trone Garriott is more measured but equally pointed: “Jesus welcomed the stranger, he fed the hungry, he stood up for the vulnerable, he cared for the poor, and that is our calling as Christians. And what people are seeing right now in so many ways… is communities being terrorized, people being treated with great cruelty.”
Trump administration officials last week told a Senate committee that the shootings of Pretti and another U.S. citizen, Renee Good, would need to be investigated—a departure from the immediate aftermath, when officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, labeled both “domestic terrorists,” despite video evidence contradicting that claim.
The Risk
The strategy comes with significant political peril.
The Democratic base has become increasingly secular. Forty percent of people who prefer the Democratic Party identified as religiously unaffiliated in a 2023-24 Pew Research Center survey—more than double the share from 2007.
“If you’re a Democratic candidate, you actually have a pretty tricky road to navigate,” said David Campbell, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame. “On the one hand, you do have a very secular base, people who are not very comfortable with religion. But on the other hand, there are a lot of moderate voters out there who are up for grabs who are very comfortable with religious language.”
Schultz said he’s not concerned about turning off non-religious voters. “People have a more sophisticated view of religion than we often give them credit for,” he said.
The Abortion Question
Perhaps the trickiest issue for Democrats using faith-based appeals is abortion rights. The candidates are navigating it carefully.
Schultz said Christian scripture does not make it clear precisely when human life begins. He argued that Republicans oppose steps that would actually reduce abortions: better healthcare, access to contraceptives, and expanded child care.
“I am pro-choice, not despite my Christian faith, but because of it,” he said.
The issue has been transformed since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. What was once a Republican attack line has become, in many races, a Democratic advantage.
Economic Justice
Many of the candidates are also focusing on economic justice, emphasizing the Bible’s call to care for the poor and afflicted. In that sense, their campaigns align with Democrats’ broader effort to put affordability at the center of the midterm battle.
“I think a person of faith sees these moral problems of the day and already has the lens and the framework with which to deal with it,” said U.S. Representative Morgan McGarvey, a Kentucky Democrat helping oversee candidate recruitment for the House campaign committee.
“Do we have food? Do we have healthcare? Do we have housing? Do we have an ICE agency which is even capable of respecting people’s rights?”
The Republican Response
Republicans are dismissive.
Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the Republican Party’s national House campaign arm, said candidates like Trone Garriott and Schultz pose no threat to Republicans’ popularity with Christian voters.
“Republicans have dominated with faith-based voters cycle after cycle because we’re delivering on common sense while Democrats are ramming through their radical liberal wish lists that are completely out of step with their own faith,” he said.
What’s at Stake
Iowa gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, the state auditor and a practicing Lutheran, put it simply: “The Christian faith is all about looking out for the little guy.”
“I can’t tell you that I think it’s a winning strategy,” Sand said. “I can tell you that I can’t do this without talking about it.”
For Democrats, the midterms will test whether faith-based appeals can win back some of the Christian voters who have drifted to the GOP—or whether the party’s increasingly secular base will punish candidates who lean too heavily on religious language.
The last white clergy member to serve as a Democrat in Congress appears to have been U.S. Representative Bob Edgar, who left office four decades ago. This year’s candidates are trying to end that drought.
Whether they succeed may depend on how many Christian voters see Trump’s immigration crackdown not as strong enforcement, but as something their faith requires them to oppose.
