Faith has been central to Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico's messaging to voters, and while that's par for the course in Texas politics, constituents may be more accustomed to hearing Republicans court the religious vote.
Joseph Locke, a historian and author of One State Under God: A History of Religion in Texas, says politics and religion have long been intertwined in the Lone Star state.
Locke spoke to KERA's Ron Corning about why Talarico's messaging was so effective in the primary and how it could impact the general election in November.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I feel like James Talarico is holding up a mirror to many who are maybe on that far-Christian-right and they're looking into it and they are not liking what they're seeing. Is that accurate?
I think that's the perfect metaphor for what Tallarico is doing by not just alighting or stepping away from the religious politics of Texas. His grounding in his Christian faith allows for a conversation that we really haven't had before. Are these politicians drawing from a historical faith? Are they grounded in a historical tradition? Is their Christianity the Christianity that Texans recognize?
Talarico's candidacy has done more than anyone's over the past several decades to really let us step back and assess the kind of religious politics that have taken over the state in a more holistic manner.
Is James Talarico's campaign a sign that Texans are rejecting Christian nationalism?
It might be. I don't think we quite know yet the broad appeal of Talarico across the state of Texas. We know that it's resonated nationally. We know it's resonated among Democrats. I think the test in November will be to see how effective this message is in the larger electorate in Texas.
While Talarico's speaking to that far religious right and threading that needle, he promotes progressive policies that you could argue follow more closely with the teachings of Jesus — whether that's caring for those who have less, health care for all, taxing billionaires, etc. What do you make of all of that?
It's interesting. His repeated messages about Christ and redemption and loving your neighbor is very much harkening back to religious politics you have seen in Texas.
The civil rights movement and the populist movement of farmers and tenants and sharecroppers in the earlier part of the 20th century and late 19th century were geared toward this kind of economic message. You see it in LBJ's candidacy and in the 30s, 40s and 50s, this harkening back to a New Deal politics that Johnson brings with him to Washington. It's really only since the 1970s and 80s, with the rise of the Christian right, that this economic, more compassionate message begins to get pushed away.
Even George W. Bush really brought this to the forefront with his time in the governor's mansion in the late 90s. He was speaking of this kind of Christian compassion, this willingness to engage with religious organizations that were geared toward welfare programs. It's really only been in this last couple of decades that it's shifted entirely to culture war and issues surrounding sexuality, bathrooms, trans issues, and things like that.
It's not new for the Black church to embrace Christian messaging around politics. Is Talarico also drawing on that a bit?
Absolutely. In Texas in the 1950s and 60s, like much of the South, energy for the civil rights movement came out of the churches. It's no accident that Martin Luther King was a pastor. Black Dallas Baptist churches was where you saw the energy and the leadership. It's where you saw the organizing of civil rights campaigns and that has always been there. In fact, you often found white Christians and white Baptists complaining about this, arguing that it was a violation of separation of church and state and we needed to restore an earlier vision. But that Black tradition continues into the 70s and 80s, which you can find across pulpits in Texas.
You have also seen this with white Texans. It's a tradition that we've kind of forgotten about, but campaigns for economic justice and civil rights have come from white churches as well. James Talarico's Presbyterian Church in Austin advances causes like this. In Dallas, the Cathedral of Hope is a sprawling church ministering to LGBTQ parishioners. It's there, it just doesn't have much of a political voice.
Talarico did well in parts of southern Texas along the border. Do you think his message broke through to Hispanic voters?
100%. Right now on the border, it's Catholic churches are ministering to refugees. When migrants come across and they don't have resources, they don't have food, when they were taken and released and need shelter — it is Catholic churches that are doing that. There is an element of compassion that is entirely missed from this world of walls and razor wire and ICE raids we've seen in Minneapolis and across the country. We still need to see how this plays out in November, but I think this would resonate in border counties among Tejanos who have this rich Catholic tradition of social justice.
We've seen politics play out across the country in different ways. When a message is successful, it gets replicated, it becomes part of the campaign strategy. If James Talarico proves that his messaging around faith in this way was a winning strategy, we'll see it elsewhere won't we?
I think so. Talarico has mentioned that red-state Democrats have to operate differently than blue-state Democrats. What works in New York or California won't necessarily work in Texas. I think Talarica is a test of whether Texas religious traditions resonate in a way they might not elsewhere and I think we'll see in November how that plays out.
Ron Corning is the host of KERA's forthcoming talk show, NTX Now. Got a tip? Email Ron at rcorning@kera.org.
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