2026 Midterm Elections: The Mainline’s Unexpected Comeback
(ANALYSIS) American Protestantism has developed an increasingly sharp divide between conservative “evangelicals” and more liberal “Mainline” churches. The second group has lost its longtime role at the center of the nation’s religious life — and with it political and cultural influence — due to inexorable declines in membership and vitality.
Yet, this election year two candidates who personify the Mainline could conceivably flip Republican seats and give Democrats control of the U.S. Senate, a reminder that these denominations still represent millions of worshipers – and voters. Adding the House races, reports say as many as a dozen Mainline clergy are running for federal office as Democrats.
In Texas, Presbyterian seminary student and state legislator James Talarico has a narrow lead over problematic Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, and the latest poll, from Texas Pulse. puts him ahead 6%, beyond the 4.3% margin of error (though 2026 polls have been dicey). Talarico has received intense media scrutiny for months. In Kansas, Adam Hamilton, a superstar Methodist pastor, is suddenly threatening Republican incumbent Roger Marshall.
READ: The Curious Case of America’s Most Atheist State
Hamilton's September surprises are turning his odds of victory from inconceivable to possible. Kansas has not elected a Democratic Senator in 94 years, the party’s worst such dry spell in any state.
On Sept. 9, a lengthy New York Times piece investigated the oddity that Marshall, a retired ob-gyn physician, has taken 700 of his patients to court for non-payment of bills. A Sept. 11 coefficient.org poll had Marshall ahead by only 5% with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2%, plus a lackluster approval rating of 42% with 44% disapproving. At a debate with Hamilton, Marshall faced embarrassing audience boos over Republican tariffs and his medical billing.
Then a Sept. 18 poll for The Hill had Hamilton narrowly ahead at 45% to Marshall’s 43%, within the 3.6% margin of error.
Hamilton founded the Church of the Resurrection in 1990 with a handful of attendees in a rented funeral home, and built it into the United Methodist Church’s largest local congregation. Weekend services at nine campuses in Kansas City and nearby suburbs draw some 25,000 worshipers. Marshall brands Hamilton “too woke for Kansas,” but the pastor positions himself as a centrist with a campaign slogan of “Faith. Family. Kansas.”
His church website downplays socio-political activism, boasting instead that Resurrection members “give hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours and raise tens of millions of dollars to support neighbors and communities in need.” It says the church is second only to the regional food bank in providing donations, is the area’s largest sponsor of blood drives, treats 2,700 children a year at a mobile dental clinic, donates thousands of beds to needy children and has “invested millions of dollars in the lowest-income elementary schools.”
During the primary, the non-profit news site KansasReflector.org dug into Hamilton’s track record. He regretted waiting a year instead of immediately reporting a sexual abuse case to the police 21 years ago. Otherwise, the article mainly found complaints (often lodged against megachurch pastors) about being a demanding and inaccessible leader.
In the Texas race, Republicans portray Talarico as weird and woke. He is a lifelong member of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and of Austin’s activist St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, whose radicalism was underscored when it granted membership to an atheist. On the campaign trail. Talarico, who is a student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, regularly quotes the Bible to undergird his liberal beliefs.
Talarico sought to downplay past controversial statements in a Sept. 9 Fox News interview. Among these was his remark at a 2021 hearing that “modern science obviously recognizes there are many more than two biological sexes. In fact, there are six.” He admitted this and other remarks have “missed the mark” and said he recognizes there are the two sexes plus “a small percentage of people with genetic abnormalities.” Another disputed 2021 quote said, “God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary.” He told Fox that he meant “you can’t use human categories to define God. And that’s not controversial theologically. In fact, the late Charlie Kirk the late Pope Benedict said the same thing.”
Talarico said he opposes surgery on minors for gender transition, though he has favored puberty blockers and hormone treatment. He opposed a proposed bill banning transgender athletes because it was “too broad,” but told Fox he opposes participation in women’s sports “if it endangers safety or fairness.”
Among the House contests, Iowa stands out with two clergy Democrats in races the Sabato Crystal Ball rates as toss-ups. Sarah Trone Garriott opposes Republican incumbent Zach Nunn, and Lindsay James faces Republican Joe Mitchell, a former state legislator. (James beat a Methodist minister in her primary.)
Though Mitchell calls James “the most radical leftist to ever run for Congress” in Iowa, her divinity degree is from evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary. An ordained Presbyterian Church (USA) minister, she has served as an associate pastor, college chaplain and adjunct university professor. Her campaign website says that, as a representative in the state House, she is “guided by a deep moral compass.”
Garriott, a state senator, has degrees from Harvard Divinity School and Chicago’s Lutheran School of Theology, and is ordained by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She has served as a pastor, hospital chaplain, and program leader with the Des Moines Area Religious Council. Her campaign slogan is “Minister. Mother. Leader.”
Mitchell attacked both women’s religious status at a July Family Leadership Summit. According to Religion News Service, he labeled both James and Garriott as “PINOS,” standing for “Pastors In Name Only” because he thinks “they’re not real pastors, right? They don’t profess the true gospel of Jesus Christ” — a remarkable pitch to conservative believers.
Among the 2026 unknowns is whether the dramatic departure of some Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and other mainline denominations from traditional Christian teaching after long debates on sexual morality will have any political impact.
Richard N. Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He is a recipient of the Religion News Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. He has interviewed such personalities as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths; as well as numerous ordinary believers. He writes a bi-weekly column for Religion Unplugged.