Holy flashpoints, Batman! Religion and the 2026 U.S. midterm elections

By EditorUpdated on . Posted on
Photo of an official ballot drop box outside in Ferndale, WA, USA, during election season.
Photo by Greg Thames via Pexels

Here we go again. 

In the lead up to the 2026 midterm elections, religion is once more at the heart of heated, polarizing and very public disputes about the direction the country should take — and who should be the ones to help lead it there. 

Across several key issues — from immigration policy to gender, reproductive rights to freedom of religion —  religious language, actors and institutions are central to how candidates are framing their campaigns and how voters interpret them or are mobilized to action. 

In this guide, we provide background, tips and suggestions, newswriting and sources for you to turn to as you ramp up your coverage of religion and the 2026 midterms. 

Background

This time around, candidates are not only appealing to “values voters,” but invoking scripture, moral authority and theological language to justify sharply divergent policy positions — often on multiple sides of the same issue.

At the same time, internal fractures within evangelicalism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and mainline Protestantism are perhaps as politically consequential as divides between traditions. The result is a religious landscape that remains highly influential in politics but far less predictable than in previous cycles.

Whether the issue is immigration, foreign policy, abortion or LGBTQ+ rights, each functions as a political wedge and theological battleground, shaping campaign rhetoric, voter mobilization and grassroots activism.

For example, in Texas, candidates such as state Rep. James Talarico and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are offering starkly different religious framings of public policy — Talarico advocating for progressive theology focused on neighborly love, social justice and church-state separation, while Paxton touts his more traditional, evangelical bona fides emphasizing  gender politics, abortion restrictions and maintaining a “Christian social order” in the face of threats from the political left and the specter of “radical Islamism.”

In Colorado, candidates like State Representative Scott Bottoms and former minister Victor Marx drew national attention in the state’s Republican primary, primarily for their overtly spiritualized campaign rhetoric, including language around spiritual warfare and even exorcism, signaling how charismatic and Pentecostal idioms are entering electoral politics more visibly. As of publication, it looked as if Marx would be the winner, thrusting his spiritually-intoned campaign back into the national spotlight. 

Georgia remains a perennial testing ground for Black church mobilization and evangelical political infrastructure, where faith leaders and voting rights advocates are urging Georgians to “vote like never before.” Meanwhile, states like California are seeing intensified religious advocacy around election integrity, education, gender policy and parental rights. 

Elsewhere, the reemergence of “anti-Sharia” legislation efforts in places like Arizona, Florida and Texas underscores how Islam is still mischaracterized and weaponized in broader debates over national identity and religious freedom.

Below, we review key issues to focus on in your coverage in the coming months, whether you are looking at national storylines or stand and local trends:

Cost of living

Rising costs for housing, food, healthcare and numerous other every day products and services may appear purely economic, but in the 2026 midterms they are increasingly framed in moral and religious terms, with candidates across the spectrum drawing on faith-inflected arguments to make their case to the American people.

Progressives are invoking religious traditions of economic justice and care for people impacted by poverty, while conservatives emphasize personal responsibility, family stability and the dignity of work — even as they opine the prices at the pump. The rub will be tracking how those moral claims translate into policy positions and political preferences in the months to come.

Meanwhile, churches, mosques, synagogues and temples are expanding food pantries, offering rental assistance and functioning as informal — or even “invisible” — social safety nets, often absorbing the immediate effects of inflation and the decrease in federal funding for these services. These activities are  especially visible in high-cost states like California and fast-growing regions in Texas and Georgia, where religious communities are both responding to economic strain and, at times, entering policy debates around housing, wages and social services.

Immigration and deportation

Though the news cycle around ICE and the administration’s immigration crackdowns has ebbed, few issues reveal intra-faith divides as clearly as immigration. The far-reaching intensity of federal enforcement has prompted sharply divergent responses from religious communities.

While many conservative evangelical leaders frame border security as a matter of law, order and national sovereignty, often emphasizing the legitimacy of state authority, Catholic bishops, mainline Protestant denominations, interfaith coalitions and a significant minority of evangelicals foreground humanitarian obligations, drawing on scriptural mandates to welcome the stranger and protect vulnerable families.

For reporters, the most important stories may be right down the street or around the corner, focusing on how congregations offer sanctuary, clergy organize protests or, in some cases, support enforcement efforts. How are candidates in your area approaching this issue and how are they connecting with faith communities in the process? How are local immigrant congregations navigating the carceral realities they are confronted with? How are they framing the issue and putting it back in the spotlight after the nationwide backlash in the winter?

Foreign policy

The ongoing conflicts in the Middle East have disrupted traditional political coalitions and complicated religious alignments. Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities are internally diverse, and those differences are surfacing in public debates over U.S. policy when it comes to Israel/Palestine and ongoing negotiations with Iran. 

Israel’s actions in Gaza and the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, military incursions in Lebanon and the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz are already reverberating in key districts, particularly those with sizable Jewish, Muslim and Arab American populations, where candidates face pressure to take clearer stances on calls for a ceasefire, military aid and regional escalation, or are attacked for the positions they have taken. These dynamics are reshaping turnout, donor networks and grassroots organizing, complicating long-standing partisan alignments and forcing campaigns to recalibrate how they engage religious constituencies.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia in the U.S. are not just background fodder for these headlines, but issues actively shaping voter concerns, campaign messaging and coalition-building efforts on the ground. Candidates are increasingly forced to navigate a fraught mix of national security priorities and constituent pressures, often revealing the limits of older partisan assumptions about religiously-aligned voting blocs.

Faith in the elections

Finally, religion is playing a growing role in how we understand democracy itself.

For some communities, safeguarding democratic processes has become a moral imperative. In battleground states like Georgia, Arizona, Ohio and Wisconsin, interfaith coalitions are organizing poll chaplain programs, voter protection hotlines and cross-partisan clergy statements aimed at reinforcing trust in election results.

Amid those ongoing concerns about election integrity and public trust, nonpartisan interfaith groups are promoting voter participation, countering misinformation around claims of election fraud and advocating for peaceful engagement across political divides.

At the same time, in parts of the country where election denialism has taken root, pastors and faith influencers have amplified narratives of fraud from the pulpit and on social media, lending religious legitimacy to political distrust. This dynamic is especially visible in local congregations and informal religious networks, where skepticism toward institutions and conspiracy theories can merge with theological language about spiritual warfare and eschatology — or end times beliefs.

National networks have sought to train congregational leaders to identify and counter misinformation within their own communities, positioning democratic participation as both a civic duty and a spiritual responsibility.

Redistricting is another key area where religion intersects with democratic practice. Faith-based organizations have increasingly become engaged in debates over electoral maps, particularly where changes may dilute or concentrate the political power of religious or racial minority communities. In some regions, clergy and advocacy groups have framed redistricting as a moral issue tied to fairness, representation and the protection of marginalized voices, while critics argue that religious actors can also be mobilized to support partisan mapmaking efforts that align with broader ideological goals.

Voting rights debates likewise carry significant implications for faith voters and institutions. Policies around voter ID laws, early voting, ballot access and polling place availability can disproportionately affect communities where religious congregations play a central role in civic mobilization (and often are hosting the voting process itself), such as Black churches, immigrant faith communities and rural congregations. In response, some religious leaders have framed voting access as an issue rooted in theological commitments to equality and human dignity, while others have supported stricter regulations in the name of election security, revealing deep divides within and across faith traditions about how best to balance access and integrity.

Tips and Suggestions

Back in 2024, we produced an augmented guide to reporting on faith and politics, originally developed by Bekah McNeel, Keith Hammonds and Sandi Villareal, building on work done by the Solutions Journalism Network. Two years on, the tips and suggestions are as relevant as ever:

Practice 1: Separate political and religious descriptors

Technically, if we call someone a conservative Christian, we would be saying that their Christianity, not their politics, are conservative. They might believe in, for example, the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. But because “conservative” and “liberal” are shorthand for the two political parties in the US, using “conservative Christian” strengthens the notion that the two can be used interchangeably.

Example: Instead of “conservative Christians backed Trump,” say “a majority of white evangelical voters backed Trump, as well other Republicans and conservative ballot measures.”

This will complicate the oversimplified narrative of seamless alignment between religion and politics, and disrupt the assumption that religious communities are politically homogeneous.

Practice 2: Dive beneath the data

We will see lots of data about religious voters this year. We love it: Data is a valuable reporting resource. But if you’ve ever taken a survey you know: it’s difficult to fit your complex, deeply personal beliefs into one of the multiple choice answers. Knowing how religious groups tend to vote or which issues they claim to care about will help you know what to ask about, and to recognize outliers. But to avoid simply reenforcing divisions on the issues that divide us most, ask follow-up questions to understand the why. Don’t assume that two religious voters who voted for the same candidate did so for the same reason, ask open ended questions that will get them talking, and listen for nuance. Repeat that nuance back to them to ask them to say more. Make sure you’re seeing the whole person, not just a representative of the religious group.

Example: Instead of saying “Muslims in Michigan overwhelmingly supported Biden, despite the US support for Israel’s actions in Gaza,” try to get enough information to say something like, “Among the Muslim voters who supported Biden, some, though not all, mentioned his economic policies. More frequently, those interviewed expressed concerns about Christian Nationalism in the Republican party. Though several did mention that their support for Biden had been challenged by US backing of Israel’s action in Gaza, they said that having the Republican candidate in the White House could make things more dangerous at home.”

This will complicate simplistic narratives about what religious groups believe, because allowing someone to explain their answer is often more complex than the answer itself.

Practice 3: When reporting, find out where values come from

Sometimes religious doctrine informs the issues people care about and the candidates they vote for, such as in the case of the death penalty or abortion. Sometimes civic tradition informs their priorities, such as interpretations of the Constitution. Sometimes their geography influences their vote, especially on issues of religious freedom or school choice. All of these issues can be dressed in religious language, so ask good questions about why they support what they support, and be clear about which answers are based in religious beliefs, and which are based in the other important parts of a person’s identity.

Example: Instead of saying, “Jewish voters supported candidates who made abortion rights and school choice part of their campaign,” ask enough questions to get to something like this: “Because Judaism teaches that life begins with breath, these Jewish voters said, they plan to vote for candidates who support abortion. Some also said that they want to be able to use vouchers to pay for Jewish day schools, so school choice was important to them.”

This approach constructively complicates the oversimplified narrative of religion perfectly aligning to a political platform, or that a person’s religion dictates how they vote.

Practice 4: Look for unlikely agreements and disagreements

When interfaith groups or coalitions form around an issue, ask them to talk about both their similarities and their differences. “We disagree on Jesus, but we agree on healthcare.” Same when you find religious groups committing to bridge political differences. “We disagree about the southern border, but our shared Muslim faith values caring for the poor.”  By showing that faith can lead people to different political positions, and that others can end up in the same place without the same guiding faith, we challenge the discourse that the two-party division in the United States encompasses all of our lives, our identities. Also remember: members of religious groups don’t just internally differ on politics, sometimes they differ on specific doctrines of their religion. For instance, many Christians do not interpret the Bible literally, but many do.

Taking this line complicates the oversimplified notion of two Americas, which when accepted uncritically makes you feel like you’re about to be at war with half the country.

If you’re interested in learning more, read the full guide here.

Relevant Reportage, Analysis and Commentary

Sources

  • Montse Alvarado

    Montse Alvarado is a former vice president and executive director of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, through which she represented a wide variety of religious ministers, schools, prisoners and hospitals before the Supreme Court. She is now president and COO of Eternal Word Television Network’s news division, EWTN. Contact is Michelle Laque Johnson, director of communications at EWTN Global Catholic Network.

     

  • Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs

    The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of religion, ethics, and public life.

  • Anthea Butler

    Anthea Butler is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor in American Social Thought and chair of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania. A historian of African American and American religion, she specializes in the history of Pentecostalism and is the author of White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America.

  • CatholicVote.org

    CatholicVote.org is an advocacy group and lobbying organization focused on advancing Catholic viewpoints in U.S. politics.

  • David Campbell

    David Campbell is a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame who has written widely on religion and politics. His books include, as editor, A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election and, as co-author, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.

  • Center for American Progress

    The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan institute that promotes freedom and justice in a wide variety of issues. Daniella Gibbs Leger is the executive vice president of communications and strategy.

  • Center for Religion and Civic Culture

    The Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California has a principal focus on the study of religion and immigration and its various manifestations. Richard Flory is executive director, and Megan Sweas is communications director.

  • Ria Chakrabarty

    Ria Chakrabarty is the policy director for Hindus for Human Rights.

  • Christians Against Christian Nationalism

    Christians Against Christian Nationalism is a large group of faith leaders concerned that Christian nationalism presents a persistent threat to both religious communities and democracy. Amanda Tyler of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty is lead organizer. The press contact is Karlee Marshall.

  • Chris Crawford

    Chris Crawford is the Senior Director of Civic Strategies at Interfaith America. He previously served as a policy strategist at Protect Democracy, where he led staffing for The National Task Force on Election Crises and partnered with Interfaith America in developing the Faith in Elections Playbook during the 2024 election. Press contact is Randy Craig.

  • Angela Denker

    Angela Denker, a veteran journalist and Lutheran pastor, is author of Red State Christians: A Journey Into White Christian Nationalism and the Wreckage It Leaves Behind.

  • Bani Dugal

    Bani Dugal is the principal representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the U.N. As part of the community of international nongovernmental organizations at the U.N. since 1994, she is currently serving on the steering committee of the NGO Working Group on the Security Council.

  • Faith in Public Life

    Faith in Public Life is “a strategy center for the faith community advancing faith in the public square as a powerful force for justice, compassion and the common good.”

  • Michelle Goldberg

    Michelle Goldberg is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. She is also the author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, which discusses “dominion theology,” which links Christianity and political governance.

  • Philip Gorski

    Philip Gorski is professor of sociology at Yale University. He is a comparative-historical sociologist with work on topics such as state formation, nationalism, revolution, economic development and secularization and with particular attention given to the interaction of religion and politics. He co-runs the Religion and Politics Colloquium at the Yale MacMillan Center and is co-author (with Samuel L. Perry) of The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy.

  • Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons

    Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons is senior director of policy and advocacy at Interfaith Alliance and the author of Just Faith: Reclaiming Progressive Christianity.

  • Shirley Hoogstra

    Shirley Hoogstra is president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. She has argued that expanding nondiscrimination protections for the LGBTQ community without expanding religious freedom protections would threaten the future of religious schools.

  • Institute on Religion & Democracy

    The Institute on Religion & Democracy is a prominent lobby uniting conservatives across the mainline Protestant denominations to push for more traditional policies in American churches and for more conservative policies in American politics. The IRD is considered a major player in the battles over gay rights in churches.

  • Interfaith Alliance

    The Interfaith Alliance is the national nonpartisan advocacy voice of the interfaith movement. Media inquiries can be submitted through a form on the alliance’s website.

    Contact: 202-265-3000.

  • John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics

    The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics advances the study of the intersection of religion and politics and publishes the journal Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera. It is based at Washington University in St. Louis. Mark Valeri is director.

    Contact: 314-935-9345.

  • Robert P. Jones

    Robert P. Jones is president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI. He has written several books, including White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, which won a 2021 American Book Award.

  • Keston Center for Religion, Politics, and Society

    The Keston Center for Religion, Politics, and Society is based at Baylor University in Waco, Tx. The center seeks to promote research, teaching, and understanding of religion and politics in communist, post-communist and totalitarian societies. Director is Kathy Hilllman. Contact is Keston Center Archivist Larisa Seago.

  • Dalia Mogahed

    Dalia Mogahed is a scholar at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, which specializes in the study of American Muslims. She previously served as ISPU’s director of research and, before that, as executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

     

  • National Association of Evangelicals

    The National Association of Evangelicals is an organization that includes 45,000 congregations from 40 member denominations, individual congregations from an additional 27 denominations, and 250 parachurch ministries and educational institutions. Its mission is to gather, strengthen and expand the evangelical community. Galen Carey is vice president for government relations.

    Contact: 202-789-1011.

  • National Council of Jewish Women

    The National Council of Jewish Women is a faith-based nonprofit that works for women’s rights, reproductive freedom and child welfare through offices in New York; Washington, D.C.; and Israel. Sheila Katz is Chief Executive Officer.

  • National Jewish Democratic Council

    The National Jewish Democratic Council maximizes Jewish support for Democrats at the federal and state levels of government.

  • Bradley Onishi

    Brad Onishi is a social commentator, scholar and co-host of the “Straight White American Jesus” podcast,  which ranks in the top 50 of politics shows on Apple’s podcast charts. He is the author of Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism – And What Comes Next.

  • Eboo Patel

    Eboo Patel is the founder and president of Interfaith America, a Chicago-based international nonprofit that focuses on encouraging interfaith dialogue. Request an interview through Teri Simon at Interfaith America.

  • Pew Research Center

    The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that provides information on trends, attitudes and issues affecting the U.S. and the world. The Center conducts media content analysis, polls, demographic studies and other social science research.

  • Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

    The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is the advocacy arm of the Union for Reform Judaism. Rabbi David Saperstein is its director and counsel.

  • Ray B. Shackleford

    Ray B. Shackelford is a native Houstonian who serves as Vice President of Equitable Justice for the National Urban League (NUL), responsible for managing Reclaim Your Vote, the NULs national nonpartisan get out the vote campaign.

  • Tahil Sharma

    Tahil Sharma is an interfaith activist based in Los Angeles who was born to a Hindu father and a Sikh mother. After the Oak Creek, Wisconsin, shooting at a Sikh temple in 2012, Sharma became involved in efforts for interfaith literacy and social justice and has been doing this work professionally for the past seven years. Sharma serves as one of three interfaith ministers in residence for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and as the Los Angeles coordinator for Sadhana: A Coalition of Progressive Hindus. Sharma also serves various organizations in different capacities to educate, engage and serve various communities that promote interfaith cooperation and ethical pluralism and social and productive norms in society. Contact through the website or by direct email.

  • Sikh Coalition

    The Sikh Coalition in New York is an advocacy group established by several Sikh groups across the United States after the 9/11 attacks to help protect Sikh civil rights.

  • U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

    The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has raised concerns about a range of freedom of conscience questions related to protection of life issues and supports including conscience provisions in proposed funding bills.

  • Grace Yukich

    Grace Yukich is a sociology professor at Quinnipiac University. Her areas of expertise include religion, immigration, culture, race and ethnicity, social movements and politics.

Related ReligionLink Content