Backfire: More white clergy running as Dems after Trump 'duped' churches [View all]

Source: Raw Story

November 15, 2025 8:19PM ET


The Guardian reports roughly 30 Christian white clergy, including pastors, seminary students and other faith leaders, are filing or have already filed to be Democratic candidates in next year’s midterm elections.

“I … think the stereotypes of Republicans being pro-faith are bull—— …,” said Justin Douglas, who is running for a House seat in Pennsylvania. “We’re seeing a current administration bastardize faith almost every day. They used the Lord’s Prayer in a propaganda video for what they’re now calling the Department of War. That should have had every single evangelical’s bells and whistles and alarms going off in their head: this is sacrilegious.”

Douglas, 41, is among a new generation of the Christian left looking to evolve the Democratic brand beyond college-educated urbanites and connect it with white working-class churchgoers. This, said the Guardian, breaks the traditional racial divide between Republicans and Democrats with Black pastors who run for office typically bring Democrats and their white counterparts often Republicans. For years, that divide has strengthened the Republican brand among the religious right and evangelical voters.

Douglas numbered himself among that faction. He grew up on an Indiana farm, the son of a factory worker and eldest of five children. He studied at Liberty University, founded by conservative pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell, reports the Guardian, and he recalls wearing a T-shirt expressing opposition to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. But that was two decades ago, before Trump entered the scene with his multiple wives, mistresses, assault accusations and his admission to Access Hollywood of how exactly to “grab” women.

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/trump-backfire-churches-duped/