The midterm elections are a chance to take the temperature of U.S. religious life — but the results only tell part of the story.

What happens when candidates who campaigned on religious convictions begin governing? Can faith communities keep meeting the needs of vulnerable neighbors as public resources and community needs shift? How are religious minorities responding to heightened tensions, and what do younger Americans’ changing relationships with religion mean for civic life?

In the weeks and months ahead, reporters can look beyond exit polls and campaign rhetoric to examine the everyday consequences of political change. From pastors entering public office to congregations rethinking their physical footprints, faith communities are navigating questions of public responsibility, belonging and power. 

In this guide, we break down five storylines to explore how religion shapes—and is shaped by—the political landscape in the months ahead.

What next?

The 2026 midterm elections have set the stage for the final phase of President Donald Trump’s term, with implications for debates over government spending, immigration, health care, housing and religious liberty. The results of congressional, state and local contests just passed will help determine how these issues unfold and which communities are most affected.

But the election is only a starting point. It is not an explanation for every development in U.S. religion. Some of the most consequential stories have been, as religion reporters know, unfolding for years. 

The following story ideas are designed to help you dive back into coverage in the midterms’ immediate aftermath and over the coming year.

1. From the pulpit to public office: How will elected faith leaders and religious firsts govern?

During campaign season, a range of candidates with backgrounds as pastors, preachers and other religious allegiances often drew on their faith to establish their political identities. And as results came in on Tuesday, others met major milestones in becoming the first of their faith to hold particular public offices. 

Now that the election is over, and with Democrats taking control of both chambers of Congress, the focus shifts from campaign trail promises to politicking in the halls of governance. How will newly elected officials navigate legislative bargaining, competing constituent interests and the responsibilities of serving a religiously diverse public?

Reporters should look beyond party lines to cover the policy implications of major milestones, including the election of Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan as the first Muslim U.S. Senator, and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York’s 13th District as the first Afro-Latina Muslim elected to Congress. [LINK TO FIONA’S STORY TK]

At the same time, the surprise victories of “Christian Left” progressives like United Methodist minister Adam Hamilton in Kansas or seminarian James Talarico in Texas, alongside high-stakes defenses by prominent Jewish lawmakers like Jared Moskowitz in Florida or Brad Lander in New York, signal a deeply pluralistic shift in congressional demographics.

In framing post-election coverage, the critical angle is tracking how these newly elected officials translate moral campaign rhetoric into legislative reality. 

Rather than focusing purely on cultural identity, coverage must follow the committee assignments, budget priorities and bill sponsorships of leaders who possess deep religious backgrounds or strong ties to faith communities. How will they bring their faith to bear on issues like affordability,  housing, wages, foreign policy and socialized healthcare. 

By treating these newly elected figures as practical lawmakers rather than solely symbols, journalists can accurately report on the messy compromises of governance in a deeply divided and religiously diverse republic.

Beyond the federal spotlight, city council seats, mayoral offices, and state legislative races across the country are facing immediate church-state tests regarding zoning laws, social services and education (see more below). 

Relevant sources

• Ryan Burge

  Ryan Burge studies the intersection of religious beliefs and political behavior and is an expert on survey methodology. He has spoken to the media on a range of topics, including religious affiliation and the rise of the “nones.” He teaches political science at Eastern Illinois University.

• Miranda Cruz

  Miranda Cruz is a professor of theology at Indiana Wesleyan University, with a focus on the practical application of Christian doctrine in life and ministry. She is also the author of Faithful Politics: Ten Approaches to Christian Citizenship and Why It Matters.

• 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.
  

• Jack Jenkins

  Jack Jenkins is a national reporter for Religion News Service based in Washington, covering the intersection of religion and politics as well as U.S. Catholics. He is the author of American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country.American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country.

• Gabriel Salguero

  Gabriel Salguero is pastor at The Gathering Place, a Latino-led multi-ethnic Assemblies of God congregation in Orlando, Florida. Salguero is also the president and founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition (NALEC), a coalition of several thousand evangelical congregations in the United States. He was the former Director of the Hispanic Leadership Program (HLP), and the Institute for Faith and Public Life at Princeton Theological Seminary.

• Maggie Siddiqi

  Maggie Siddiqi is Senior Advisor at Interfaith Alliance. She is an expert in faith-based advocacy for social change, coalition-building across lines of difference, and public policy on religious freedom and standing up against hate. Siddiqi recently concluded her appointment to the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Education, where she served as Director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

• Michael Sean Winters

  Michael Sean Winters is a prominent American journalist, columnist, and author who primarily writes about the intersection of politics and the Roman Catholic Church. He is best known for his long-running column and blog, “Distinctly Catholic,” published by the National Catholic Reporter. He is a Senior Fellow at the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He has also served as a visiting fellow at the Catholic University of America’s Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies.

2. The strain on faith-based social safety nets

Faith communities are often among the first places people turn for food, shelter, financial assistance and emotional support. 

According to data highlighted via On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti and the Center for Public Justice, faith communities are often at the front lines of food insecurity, providing at least half of all food assistance for unhoused families and roughly a quarter of housing programs.

But as congregations face increased demand to provide after federal cuts to humanitarian assistance and other slashes to the social safety net, they are also facing their own financial pressures, changing demographics and aging institutions. Religious attendance and giving have fallen in recent years and analyses report that approximately 4,000 U.S. churches closed in 2024 (outstripping openings for the first time in modern records), with broader estimates warning that up to 15,000 to 100,000 smaller congregations face closure due to aging memberships, inflation, and fixed building maintenance costs.

When these local entities close, the surrounding social safety net absorbs an immediate loss of support. 

The aftermath of the election offers an opportunity to examine how public policy, local needs and institutional resources continue to put a strain on faith-based social safety nets and the services that churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious organizations provide — from food pantries to shelters, family-support programs to frontline healthcare. 

Explore how organizations are managing demand, which services they must reduce or expand and whether they can maintain their work over time. And what of the relationship between public funding and religious autonomy? When faith-based organizations receive government grants, how do they balance their religious commitments with the requirements attached to public money?

Relevant Sources

• Catholic Charities USA

  Catholic Charities USA works in various areas such as adoption counseling, disaster relief, poverty awareness and raising awareness of social issues such as human trafficking and racial inequality. It works to provide aid to people in need and to activate the Catholic population to action. Kerry Alys Robinson is president & CEO.

• Art Farnsley

  Art Farnsley  directed the research of the Project on Religion and Urban Culture at the Polis Center of Indiana University. He has extensively studied congregations and social services and is one of the authors of Sacred Circles, Public Squares: The Multicentering of American Religion (Indiana University Press, 2004). His most recent work is “Flea Market Jesus,” on the religious attitudes of flea market dealers, many of whom are religious unaffiliated. He has also written about the Southern Baptist Convention and politics.
  

• Willis Jenkins

  Willis Jenkins is a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia. He works at the intersection of environmental and religious ethics.

• Najuma Smith-Pollard

  Najuma Smith-Pollard is Assistant Director of Community and Public Engagement with the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture. She is also a pastor, community activist and program lead for the Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement, which is housed at CRCC.

• Temple Beth Am

  Temple Beth Am is a Reform congregation in Seattle that has been helping families avoid homelessness since 2004. The congregation’s Homeless 2 Remain helps families secure or maintain safe housing. In collaboration with Jewish Family Services, the congregation provides eviction prevention assistance aimed at keeping families in their homes. Contact is Sue Covey. The congregation also helps Sound Foundations NW, which builds “tiny homes” that the Low Income Housing Institute and others use to build tiny-home villages.

3. Rising anti-religious hate: Who pays the price?

During the election cycle, anti-religious rhetoric surrounding high-profile candidates and campaign issues in places like Michigan and Texas sharply escalated social tensions. This escalation aligns directly with broader societal data from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) and the Pew Research Center, which note sharp increases in negative public perceptions and stereotypes surrounding Muslim communities during this electoral cycle — 25 years on from 9/11.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tracked a distinct surge in antisemitic themes punctuating federal, state and local races. Political rhetoric from across the spectrum frequently weaponized age-old tropes regarding Jewish control conspiracies, electoral manipulation and dual loyalty.

In the aftermath of the midterms, which featured a range of vociferous anti-religious hate, reporters should investigate whether local communities are approaching security needs or asking for public support. Examine the effects of threats that are never reported to police or hate that never hits the headlines, including anxiety among congregants, changes to worship services and decisions to limit public events.

How much are synagogues, mosques, Sikh gurdwaras, churches and other religious institutions spending on guards, cameras, access controls and security training? Who pays, and can smaller congregations afford the same protections as larger institutions?

Do not only focus on fault lines. Instead, look for interfaith networks that share security advice, organize vigils, accompany threatened communities and respond publicly to harassment of religious communities — both their own and others. Ask whether these partnerships endure after the immediate crisis passes and how interreligious solidarity works out at the local level. 

Use federal hate-crime data alongside local police records, civil-rights complaints and interviews with affected communities. Also be sure to distinguish documented incidents from perceptions of risk, and give religious groups the opportunity to share their experiences on their own terms.

Relevant sources

• Anti-Defamation League

  The Anti-Defamation League tracks discrimination based on religion. ADL has 30 regional offices. Check with local ADL officials for a breakdown on the number and type of antisemitic incidents in your area and for leads on interfaith initiatives.

• Jordan Denari Duffner

  Jordan Denari Duffner is a Catholic scholar of Muslim-Christian relations who has written two books on Islamophobia and interfaith relations. She comments frequently on Pope Francis’ relationship with Islam and Muslims.

• Institute for Social Policy and Understanding

  The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding is an independent nonprofit think tank committed to research and analysis of U.S. domestic and foreign policies, with an emphasis on issues related to the Muslim community in the United States. Katherine Coplen is director of communications.

• Ariel Salzmann

  Ariel Salzmann is a history professor at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. Her research includes histories of Mediterranean communities and Muslim societies, the transformation of market systems and the making of global capitalism, as well as Islamophobia and Catholic-Muslim relations.

• Leonard Saxe

  Leonard Saxe directs the Steinhardt Social Research Institute and the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He has conducted studies on many aspects of Jewish life, including intermarriage, the impact of Birthright Israel and antisemitism on college campuses.

• 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.

4. More mess, less monolith

The 2026 midterm results revealed deep internal fractures and unexpected cross-faith coalitions beyond the media myth of monolithic religious voting blocs. 

With Democrats taking control of both chambers of Congress, traditional lines have blurred while a robust multi-faith left bringing together Black Protestant social ethicists, Catholic social justice advocates and progressive Jewish and Muslim organizers is rapidly mobilizing to push a joint legislative agenda. 

Meanwhile, data from the 2026 Midterm Election Voter Poll confirms that pocketbook pressures, not abstract theology, drove Hispanic faith voters this round, with inflation—specifically grocery, housing, and gasoline costs—ranking as top priorities. While the poll showed a majority of Latino voters trusted the Democratic Party, significant electoral swings prove their loyalty must be continually earned through economic performance. Furthermore, defying simple partisan narratives an overwhelming majority of Hispanic voters across Catholic, Evangelical and Pentecostal lines want a balanced immigration system that simultaneously secures the border and provides an earned path to citizenship for long-term residents.

Finally, reporters must keep an eye out for Gen Z. As reported by Vox, younger generations of voters cannot afford the idealism and social progressivism that their faith—or lack thereof—might usually motivate them toward. Instead, they appeared to be much more pragmatic and focused on the economy in the midterms. While young white evangelicals, traditionalist Catholics, Orthodox Jews and Muslims are still being drawn to major culture war issues or sticky foreign policy issues, most Gen Z voters just want to have a job and afford their day-to-day life. How does religion play a role in these pocketbook issues? 

Relevant sources

• 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.

• Paul Djupe

  Paul Djupe is a political scientist at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where he specializes in religion and politics. He edits the Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics series and has written about people of faith’s voting patterns, the religious right and faith-based opposition to socialism.

• Gastón Espinosa

  Gastón Espinosa, assistant professor of religious studies at Claremont McKenna College in California, specializes in Latino religion and politics.

• R. Marie Griffith

  R. Marie Griffith is the John C. Danforth Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis. For 12 years, she served as director of the university’s John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. She has written on women in charismatic and Pentecostal movements.

• 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.

• Gregory A. Smith

  Gregory A. Smith is the associate director of research at the Pew Research Center. He’s an expert on religion in America. Arrange interviews through Anna Schiller.

• UnidosUS

  UnidosUS, founded in 1968, is a national nonpartisan organization that serves as the nation’s largest Latino civil rights advocacy organization. Press contact is Ana Gabriela Fernández.

5. Taking the fight back to the schools

Schools are a perennial frontline in culture wars and fights over the place of faith in American public life. In the aftermath of the midterms, reporters should watch how newly approved ballot measures impact, or elected state officials approach, school voucher programs, parental-rights fights and religious expression in public education. These debates raise fundamental questions about religious liberty, educational equity and whether taxpayer dollars should support faith-based schooling.

One important storyline is the expansion of publicly funded school choice. While supporters frame public funding as a matter of parental choice and religious freedom, critics question whether public money should support institutions that teach particular religious beliefs or impose faith-based admissions and employment requirements. As more states direct public money toward private-school tuition through vouchers and education savings accounts, investigate how religious schools are benefiting and what the changes mean for public school districts. How are Catholic, evangelical, Jewish, Islamic and other religious schools navigating these programs? Do families from minority religious traditions have meaningful access to the expanding school-choice landscape? What happens to public school budgets and resources as more students leave for private institutions? 

Watch the legal battles over explicitly religious public charter schools as well. Ongoing drama with   proposed schools in Oklahoma has raised fundamental questions about whether a publicly funded charter school can operate under religious auspices. Though an effort for a Catholic virtual school stalled, one for a Jewish charter school marches on. Could a precedent set in Oklahoma eventually open the door to publicly funded charter schools affiliated with other religious communities elsewhere? 

Another storyline concerns the place of religion inside public schools themselves. Follow state-level efforts to expand student prayer, religious instruction and parental control over curriculum. How are schools accommodating students’ religious expression while protecting the rights of those from different faiths or no faith at all? The continuing controversy over Bible-based curricula, Ten Commandments displays and religious materials in classrooms offers opportunities to examine where schools draw the line between teaching about religion and promoting religion.

Relevant sources

• Becket Fund for Religious Liberty

  The Becket Fund is a public-interest law firm in Washington, D.C., that works to protect the free expression of all religious traditions. For interviews, contact Ryan Colby.

• Robert C. Enlow

  Robert C. Enlow is the president and CEO of EdChoice, a nonprofit that supports school choice.

• Charles Haynes

  Charles C. Haynes is the founding director of the Religious Freedom Center at the Freedom Forum Institute. He writes and speaks extensively on religious freedom and faith in public life, specializing in church-state conflict related to public schools.

   

• Leslie Hiner

  Leslie Hiner is the vice president of legal affairs for EdChoice, an organization that researches and advocates for school choice programs. Arrange an interview through Jennifer Wagner.

• Rebecca S. Markert

  Rebecca S. Markert serves as vice president and legal director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Previously, she was legal director for the Freedom From Religion Foundation. She is an expert on First Amendment litigation and has worked on cases related to religion in public schools and religious symbols on government property. Contact through Liz Hayes, AU’s associate vice president of communications.

• Martha L. Minow

  Martha L. Minow is a Harvard Law School professor and scholar of education law, has written about educational equity, school choice and the responsibilities of public institutions. Her work offers a useful perspective on the broader implications of privatizing public education and she has additional expertise in human rights and transitional societies and religion.

• Asma Uddin

  Asma Uddin is the author of When Islam Is Not a Religion: Inside America’s Fight for Religious Freedom. She previously served as counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where she focused on both international and American religious liberty advocacy. Uddin has extensive knowledge of religious freedom law and a track record of defending religious minorities, and she often speaks on on issues of gender and faith.