Is the “religious left” back?
The election of five new Democrats to Congress on Tuesday who are clergy or seminarians, along with wins for other Democrats who talked often of their faith on the trail, has some watchers of religion and politics saying the midterms represent a historic shift.
After decades of focus on the rise of conservative Christians, these observers see victories by left-leaning candidates including Sens.-elect James Talarico of Texas (a Presbyterian seminarian) and Adam Hamilton of Kansas(a United Methodist mega-church pastor) as proof that the national narrative of religion and politics is being upended.
“The Christian left is here” was the headline Wednesday of a religion and politics story in Vox. Amy Sullivan, author of a popular 2008 book positing that Democrats were closing the “God gap,” posted on Facebook that she was taking a “victory lap. … Democrats have leveled the praying field.”
But others who study religion and politics say this election, which included the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate, was about the economy and the entire country moving left – not a sign of the Democratic Party becoming more overtly religious.
“It’s like Lucy with the football; every year it’s like ‘This is the year the religious left is coming back.’ No they’re not. To be religious in America is to be conservative,” said Washington University of St. Louis political scientist and religion statistician Ryan Burge, noting that the pattern applies to White Americans, not voters of color.
In Tuesday’s election, the largest “religious” group of voters were people with no religious affiliation – at 27 percent of the total. Seventy-eight percent of them voted Democratic on Tuesday, NBC News found.
Burge said he did see anecdotal signs that Americans were fed up with what they see as a lack of decency in politics, particularly from President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. “It’s not a Christian morality. It’s called ‘civil religion’ —what we’ll allow and what we won’t.”
Northwestern University religious studies professor Robert Orsi said Talarico’s victory in particular signals the return of a “liberal Christianity” that was “the driving force behind the most important movements for social justice in U.S. history.”
Liberal Christianity has been “by its own choice in a position of resistance” in recent decades rather than in a cooperative dynamic with government, Orsi wrote in an email. Talarico, he added, is changing that.
Talking daily about faith
Talarico, a former middle school teacher who became a seminarian while serving in the Texas House, is the first Democratic senator-elect in 40 years from Texas, a stronghold of the religious right.
He won by talking daily about Scripture, his understanding of Christianity’s public obligations and how he sees Christian nationalism as heretical. He had a Sunday school teacher affect on podcasts and at rallies, describing his progressive Christianity, which he sees as focused on bringing up the downtrodden and disenfranchised and loving one’s neighbor.
“My faith teaches me that love is the strongest force in the universe,” he told supporters Tuesday night in Austin. “Love requires that we stand between the bullies and the bullied. Love requires that we look evil in the eye and not blink.”
Of Jesus, he said: “when the people at the top hurt his neighbors, that barefoot rabbi didn’t stay in his room and pray.” He “walked into the seat of power and flipped over the tables of injustice.”
High-visibility Islam
By becoming the first Muslim elected to the Senate, Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed brings new prominence to an expression of Islam that is both observant and progressive.
El-Sayed was one of at least three Muslim Democrats to win seats in Congress on Tuesday, joining four incumbents — also Democrats — for a historic total of seven. (California Democrat Aisha Wahab, who was elected to Congress in an August special election, is leading in her race for a full term, which has not been called yet. She would bring the total number of Muslim lawmakers in Congress to eight.)
Along with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, these Muslim politicians are raising public awarenessof their faith at a time of increasing anti-Muslim rhetoric and vitriol from parts of the Republican Party.
“American Muslims are no longer waiting for a seat at the table,” read the subject line of a Wednesday email from the advocacy group Muslim Public Affairs Council. The group also said Muslims seeking public office this year “were subjected to baseless accusations of extremism, attacks on their faith and patriotism, and efforts to portray their political participation as a threat.”
El-Sayed, a doctor and public health leader, spoke regularly during the campaign and in his victory speech about his faith — including stories about his Egyptian grandmother or the way the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks forced him to become more fluent about his religion.
“Up until right about now, you might have noticed I always say ‘Inshallah’ or ‘God willing’ whenever the outcome of this race was mentioned,” he told his victory party Tuesday. “But today, tonight, we can turn that ‘Inshallah’ into a ‘Alhamdulillah!’” The latter phrase is Arabic for “Praise be to God.”
Attacks and polling during the campaign reflected some Americans’ skepticism and bias involving Islam. A Washington Post-Schar School poll released in September found that 45 percent of likely Michigan voters said they would not consider voting for a Muslim presidential candidate.
El-Sayed received 52.5 percent of the vote, according to preliminary returns, compared with 45.5 percent for his main opponent.
In a recent interview with “60 Minutes,” El-Sayed emphasized how he sees religious freedom operating in the United States. He cited instruction by the prophet Muhammad, Islam’s founder, to be charitable to neighbors, which he interpreted as a responsibility to the people around you and fighting to protect their rights.
Muslims in the U.S. are very diverse religiously and politically. For U.S. House races in Tuesday’s election, 62 percent voted Democratic and 35 percent voted Republican, according to a NORC poll. Still, El-Sayed was asked by “60 Minutes” if he sees tension between his faith and the more socially liberal positions of his party.
“I’m a constitutionalist, and I think rights are rights. The minute you assent to government taking anyone’s rights, you are assenting to the government taking everybody’s rights,” El-Sayed said.
He added that he tells both Muslims and LGBTQ+ advocates: “‘I don’t care whether you will ever use a right you’re fighting for. … Whether it’s the right to put your face on the ground 34 times a day in a mosque or … your right to love who you love.’”
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