The U.S. midterm elections marked a striking moment for the religious left, which has long struggled to match the influence and visibility of conservative Christians. Victorious candidates, including pastors and others who presented a faith-forward message, put values like compassion and inclusion at the center of their campaigns.

“Two thousand years ago, when the people at the top hurt his neighbors, that barefoot rabbi didn’t stay in his room and pray,” said Presbyterian seminarian James Talarico, a Democrat, standing in front of a placard that read “Love Thy Neighbor,” after claiming victory in the Texas U.S. Senate race.

Jesus “walked into the seat of power and flipped over the tables of injustice,” he said. 

In addition to Talarico in Texas, who made his religious beliefs a centerpiece of his campaign, Democrats saw a faith leader trigger an upset in the Kansas U.S. Senate race: Adam Hamilton, who pastors a United Methodist megachurch, sailed to a resounding win in a state that hadn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932.

Hamilton’s popularity — spurred in part by his church, which boasts more than 20,000 attendees on an average Sunday — was rooted in a centrist message intertwined with faith. His victory speech began by thanking supporters but before long slipped into sermon mode. 

And the crowd joined in, reciting parts of Bible verses, like “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and then listening as Hamilton told the story of the Good Samaritan: A traveler is beset by robbers, and two religious leaders pass him as he lies in a ditch. Then a stranger stopped and helped him. Hamilton challenged supporters to be like that stranger. He said that Americans are ready for a better version of public life. 

It was a religious message that appeared in various forms among the nine pastors, former pastors and seminarians who ran for Congress as Democrats this cycle. It’s also one that Trump, Republicans and their religious allies tried to counter, casting aspersions on the faith of the Democratic clergy and seminarians and framing their support for LGBTQ+ people as evidence that they weren’t true Christians. 

Vice President JD Vance suggested that Talarico is attracted to men and accused Hamilton of wearing the “skin suit of our religion” — referring to Christianity.

In Iowa, Republican Joe Mitchell, who was running in the state’s second district, said his opponent, Presbyterian minister and state House member Lindsay James, was not a “real pastor.” He said the same was true of Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran minister and state senator running for Congress in Iowa’s third district, and said neither pastor professes “the true gospel of Jesus Christ.”

But as results rolled in on election night, it became clear that the attacks didn’t work. Like Talarico and Hamilton, James and Garriott won their seats, too — both pickups for Democrats.

Religious Democrats kept winning: Frederick Haynes III, who leads Black Protestant megachurch, Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, was elected the next U.S. congressman from Texas’ 30th district. And Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a longtime congressman in Missouri’s 5th congressional district, defended his seat. Along with Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, there will now be three Black pastors in Congress come January, all of them Democrats.

Democrat Amy Acton was elected Ohio’s first Jewish governor, and Abdul El-Sayed, a Michigan Democrat, became the first Muslim U.S. Senator in history. El-Sayed ran a campaign that did not shy away from his Muslim faith, despite being falsely cast as a “jihadist” by President Trump.

“You might have noticed I always say ‘Inshallah,’ or God willing, whenever the outcome of this race is mentioned,” El-Sayed said in his victory speech. “Tonight, we can turn that ‘Inshallah’ into ‘Alhamdulillah.’ ” As the crowd cheered, he added: “For the right-wing ops, that just means ‘praise be to God.’”

Not all of the faith-forward Democrats were victorious. Anna Golladay, a former Methodist pastor running as a Democrat in Tennessee’s third district, fell short. She faced long odds in the deep-red area, which has one of the highest percentages of evangelical Christians of any district in the country, according to political scientist and researcher Ryan Burge. Her opponent, incumbent Republican Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, who is Catholic, won a decisive victory. Another democratic challenger, Robb Ryerse, a progressive evangelical running in Arkansas’ third district, lost to incumbent Rep. Steve Womack by nearly 13 points.