NOTE: This piece was originally published at our newsletter A Public Witness.
Democrats last night (Nov. 3) won control of both houses of Congress and flipped a number of statewide seats and state legislative races, including in Southern states and historically Republican districts. One early victim of this “Blue Wave,” which was fueled in part by mainline Protestant clergy running for office, may have been the monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon.
Although the services, which started in May 2025, usually occur in the second half of the month, one was scheduled for today (Nov. 4) just two weeks after last month’s service. When the time for the service came — and long past when the service typically ends — the livestream played music and included a message on the screen: “There are no scheduled events at this time.” The Pentagon did not respond to my media request asking if the service had been canceled or delayed (or perhaps just not livestreamed despite the creation of the livestream page and the fact that all of the previous services were livestreamed).
Screengrab of the page created to air a Pentagon worship service on Nov. 4, 2026.
Just minutes before the service was scheduled to start, CBS News reported that President Donald Trump was spending the morning after the landslide election asking advisors if he should fire Pete Hegseth, who likes to call himself “secretary of war.” Trump later said publicly in response to a reporter’s question that he thinks Hegseth is doing “a very good job.” But that doesn’t mean Hegseth’s job is secure.
Earlier on Wednesday morning, Vice President J.D. Vance took to Elon Musk’s X platform to argue the electoral loss was primarily the fault of those who pushed the Iran war.
“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” wrote Vance, who reportedly opposed plans to start the war. “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.”
Exit polling data provides some support for Vance’s take. A key reason for the Democratic wave across the country was anger against the Iran war — and the higher fuel and grocery prices it sparked. Hegseth not only launched and led that unpopular military mission, but he repeatedly used the monthly worship services to pray for the war in violent terms (including the time when he prayed for the war with a fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction). With Democrats taking control of both the House and Senate and some members pushing to impeach Hegseth if Trump doesn’t fire him first, last night’s results could be a sign of the end times for his job.
Beyond the threat to his own job security, last night’s results also represented a stark repudiation of Hegseth’s brand of violent Christian Nationalism. Although defense secretaries typically stay out of partisan politics, Hegseth this year went and campaigned for two House members. But one of them lost — and did so to a progressive mainline Protestant minister. Rev. Sarah Trone Garriott, a Democratic member of the Iowa state Senate and an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America minister, defeated Republican Rep. Zach Nunn. Hegseth trekked to Iowa to campaign for Nunn in August as Nunn and other Republicans attacked the religious faith of Garriott.
Similarly, a church in Hegseth’s denomination led the attacks on the faith of Rev. Adam Hamilton as the United Methodist megachurch pastor sought to oust GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas. Exodus Church in Wichita is part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a denomination started and led by Wilson, a Christian Nationalist pastor in Idaho, self-described “paleo-Confederate,” and a patriarchal figure who wants to repeal the 19th Amendment (and who has a history of condoning sexual abuse). Marshall and other Kansas Republican candidates showed up recently at a highly partisan Sunday night service at Exodus and the church’s pastor later prayed at a Marshall campaign event.
Another race that served as a repudiation to Hegseth came as Nancy Lacore, a former Navy Admiral who was fired by Hegseth (along with other female and Black military leaders he has targeted for firing or blocked promotions), flipped a U.S. House seat in South Carolina that has been held by the retiring Rep. Nancy Mace. Lacore, who is Catholic, criticized Hegseth during her campaign for his “injection of politics and religion into the military.”
Rev. Adam Hamilton reacts to supporters at an election night event with his wife LaVon Bandy, on Nov. 3, 2026, in Overland Park, Kansas. (Charlie Riedel/Associated Press)
Beyond Hamilton and Garriott, several other mainline Protestant clergy or seminarians also won as Democratic candidates:
James Talarcio, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seminary student, defeated Ken Paxton to become the next U.S. senator from Texas, leading a blue wave across the Lone Star State that saw Democrats sweep statewide seats. Among the Republicans defeated were Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (a leading Christian Nationalist figure who chairs Trump’s so-called “Religious Liberty Commission”) and state attorney general nominee Mayes Middleton (who as a state senator sponsored a bill pushing prayer time in public schools and backed one requiring public schools to post a highly edited version of the Ten Commandments).
Rev. Lindsay James, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister, flipped a U.S. House seat in Iowa, joining Garriott as mainline ministers now heading to Congress from the Hawkeye State. Her Republican opponent had attacked James and Garriott as “PINOs,” or “Pastors in Name Only.” But these two actual pastors will now also be congressmembers.
Rev. LaKesha Womack won a U.S. House seat in North Carolina that analysts weren’t even paying attention to as a possible flip. For the Charlotte-area seat, she narrowly defeated Rep. Tim Moore, a powerful Republican figure who previously had the longest tenure as a House speaker in the Tar Heel State. Womack is ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, previously leading the denomination’s young adult ministry. In her campaign bio, she also highlighted that she spent the last three years as a consultant with American Baptist Home Mission Societies and the American Baptist publisher Judson Press.
Rev. Freddy Haynes III, pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church, a Black megachurch in Dallas, won a U.S. House seat last night being vacated by one of his members, Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett. The church is part of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, which was the denominational home of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr and today also includes Rev. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia (whose church is dually aligned with American Baptist Churches USA). While the PNBC is typically categorized as a Black Protestant denomination instead of mainline, Haynes has ties to the mainline tradition and has spoken at American Baptist and Cooperative Baptist denominational meetings. His father was pastor of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco (which is part of both ABCUSA and National Baptist Convention USA) and later became the home church of Kamala Harris.
Rev. Emanuel Cleaver, a longtime United Methodist pastor in Missouri, went into Election Day confident of victory. The real win for him came earlier as Missourians pushed back against a Republican effort to gerrymander the Black congressman out of office. After a series of court battles and a brief constitutional crisis (with the primary election held using wrong district lines), the Missouri and U.S. Supreme Courts unanimously blocked state Republicans from using their gerrymandered map. Last night, Cleaver not only won as expected, but he also received his largest win ever as he defeated state Sen. Rick Brattin 70%-28%. Brattin has been a leading Christian Nationalist lawmaker in the Show-Me State.
In addition to wins by mainline Protestant clergy and seminarians, some lay leaders won, like Roy Cooper (a Presbyterian elder) who flipped a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina. Also, the eight House battleground districts with the heaviest number of mainline Protestants (in Iowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) all flipped from Republican to Democrat. While mainline Protestants remain a swing group with lots of political diversity, last night they played a pivotal role in shifting control of Congress, governors’ mansions, and state legislatures.
The faith of mainline Protestants — with a strong moral ethic centered around loving one’s neighbors and serving others — contrasts dramatically with the brand of Christianity on display during Hegseth’s worship services at the Pentagon. None of the 18 monthly services have featured a mainline Protestant preacher and only one had a sermon from a Catholic (a Fox News commentator who left the priesthood to get married). The rest of the sermons came from rightwing patriarchal evangelicals. Nine of the services included a sermon from a Southern Baptist pastor and five featured a message from a preacher in Hegseth’s own CREC denomination (including four by his own pastor and one by Doug Wilson).
While Hegseth’s Crusader version of Christian Nationalism has been proclaimed inside the Pentagon for almost two years, that may come to an end soon in part because of a wave of mainline Protestant clergy heading to Washington, D.C.
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
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