Sen.-elect James Talarico (D-Texas) closed his Nov. 3 victory speech in Austin by presenting Jesus overturning the tables in the Temple as a model for his Senate term. “2,000 years ago 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 he flipped over the tables of injustice,” Talarico said.
“As this movement heads to the seat of power, as we head to the United States Senate, we know what this moment requires of us. Texas, it’s time to start flipping tables.”
Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian who defeated Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, is one of four Democrats elected on Nov. 3 who built their campaigns around their Christian faith. The other three are Kansas Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton, a United Methodist pastor, and two ordained ministers from Iowa, Reps.-elect Sarah Trone Garriott and Lindsay James.
Talarico, the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas since 1988, opened his speech with the story of David and Goliath. He identified his own Goliaths as “the richest man in the world, the most powerful man in the world and the entire Washington D.C. establishment.” He said his grandfather, a Baptist preacher in South Texas, taught him that “we follow a barefoot rabbi who gave us two commandments, love God and love neighbor.”
He then tied Scripture to policy proposals that included universal health care and an end to what he called “corrupt forever wars,” adding, “And we must heal the deep spiritual corruption at the root of all of these crises.”
Talarico’s statements about the nature of God drew criticism throughout the campaign. During an October 2021 Texas House debate on a bill barring boys from girls’ school sports, he said, “God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is nonbinary.” In an October 2023 sermon, according to FactCheck.org, he told the congregation, “God is not a Presbyterian. God is not a Christian. God is not a noun at all. God is a verb.”
On Joe Rogan’s podcast in September 2025, Talarico cited the Annunciation in defending abortion, saying the angel Gabriel “asks Mary if this is something she wants to do, and she says, ‘If it is God’s will, let it be done.’”
In another podcast appearance, he said atheists are “more Christ-like than” some of his Christian colleagues in the Texas House. In a 2021 podcast interview circulated by RNC Research in June, he said, “I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity.”
At a CNN town hall in October, a Christian voter asked him about the nonbinary remark and his biblical case for abortion. Talarico called the comments “provocative” and said he had made them “in an annoying way.”
Texas Republicans challenged his claims. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in June that Talarico would “go to hell” for his biblical interpretations. Paxton, a Southern Baptist, said Talarico is not a Christian. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, called Talarico “not a Christian” and “evil” and said on Fox News that his beliefs “disqualify him from being a Christian.”
Other Democratic winners also emphasized faith in their victory speeches, a shift from earlier election cycles, when faith was more often a defining feature of Republican campaigns.
In Kansas, Hamilton defeated Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, becoming the first Democrat elected to represent the state in the U.S. Senate in 94 years. The founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, the country’s largest United Methodist congregation, delivered his victory speech from a pulpit. He led the crowd in reciting Matthew 7:12: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Hamilton’s teachings on Scripture became a campaign issue. In a December 2024 episode of his podcast, he said Christians do not have to believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. His campaign responded by citing a passage from his book “Making Sense of the Bible,” in which he writes that he accepts “four and a half” of the five fundamentals of the Christian faith.
In a sermon titled “Is the Bible True?” he held up a colander, compared Jesus to it and urged believers to set aside passages of the Bible that do not match Jesus’ words. In October, a group of Kansas pastors called on Hamilton to repent and withdraw from the race over his teachings on homosexuality and abortion.
Hamilton’s campaign platform states, “I support safe and legal access to abortion.” He also notes that he voted against the 2022 Value Them Both amendment, which would have removed the right to an abortion from the Kansas Constitution.
In Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, Trone Garriott, a state senator and ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, defeated Republican Rep. Zach Nunn. Her campaign presented her as “Minister. Mother. Leader.” She has argued that Democrats’ silence on faith left a vacuum “filled by the religious right.” In her victory speech, she said that “the love we have for our neighbors is so much more powerful.”
Trone Garriott told her congregation, “This is not a Christian nation. It’s a nation for all of us,” according to the Daily Signal. In a 2023 speech on what she called “Christian nationalism” at Ames First United Methodist Church, she described the LGBTQ movement as challenging “who’s a man and who’s woman and how relationships are.” In the same speech, according to the Daily Wire, she said evangelical opposition to “GLBTQ” ideology stems from racial anxiety rather than theology.
In an August interview, she declined to identify a point at which abortion becomes murder. In the Iowa Senate, she voted against bills barring boys from girls’ sports and restricting gender transition procedures for minors.
In Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, James, a Presbyterian minister and college chaplain who serves in the Iowa House, flipped the seat vacated by Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, who ran for the U.S. Senate. Her Republican opponent, Joe Mitchell, called her a “Pastor in Name Only.” He said, “If you’re a pastor and you think that 6-year-olds can change their gender, I don’t think you’re much of a pastor.” James called the attack offensive and said it “insults all Christians and pastors.”
In a March 17, 2023, Iowa PBS appearance alongside Republican Rep. Steven Holt, James, then the Iowa House minority leader, opposed a bill requiring transgender students to use school bathrooms and locker rooms that match their biological sex. She cited Trevor Project figures indicating that “52% of transgender youth struggle with suicidal ideation.”
She also opposed a bill banning puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and gender transition surgeries for minors. “Every medical, U.S. medical society, every medical experts agree that gender affirming care is medically necessary and can be lifesaving care,” James said. When Holt cited the British Medical Journal’s warning about puberty blockers, she replied, “Conspiracy theories do not equal science. Google searches do not equal medical degrees.”
On abortion, she said Democrats were “working on reproductive freedom” because Iowans “want politicians out of their doctor’s offices.”
All four take office in January, Talarico and Hamilton in the Senate and Trone Garriott and James in the House. Each campaigned as a Christian while supporting abortion.
The post Meet the Democrats Who Won on Crackpot Christianity: ‘God Is Nonbinary,’ the Bible Has Errors, and ‘This Is Not a Christian Nation’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.