Half of evangelicals voted for a Democrat in 1976. What happened?
by Vote Common Good Team | Aug 18, 2026
We need to get to work. There isn’t much time.
Friends,
In 1976, Jimmy Carter won about half of white evangelical voters, running as a born-again Baptist who talked openly about his faith. Democrats haven’t come close to that since.
For a long time, we haven’t even acted as if that loss mattered. And in recent elections, faith voters have flocked to MAGA.
We have to stop that approach — it’s not working! This is the work Vote Common Good has been doing for the last eight years.
Which is why I was happy to talk to ABC News for their new story about Democrats finally trying to take faith voters back, as these voters increasingly rail against MAGA Christianity and Christian Nationalism under the Trump administration.
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Here’s what I told them: “The Democratic Party basically gave up on religious identity and voting and turned it over to Republicans who really weren’t targeting religious voters.”
Senator Raphael Warnock, who serves as senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the pulpit where Martin Luther King Jr. once stood, also made it clear that Democrats have ceded the moral vocabulary around faith and values to Republicans.
Some days this work feels less like political organizing and a little like running a dating service. We’re introducing faith voters and the Democratic Party to each other, showing each side what the other really believes and proving just how well they fit together once someone makes that introduction.
Democrats have made a huge mistake, and it’s cost us a whole generation of voters who never stopped believing in something themselves; they just stopped believing we did.
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Common Good candidate James Talarico, a state representative and seminarian running for Senate in Texas against Ken Paxton, talks about a new politics rooted in love rather than fear, calling the old way of doing this bloodsport.
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Vote Common Good inspires people of good conscience to wake up, stand up, and speak up against MAGA politics and Christian Nationalism. We have a proven record of success moving faith voters away from radical candidates and inspiring them to vote their values for the common good. Please consider a contribution today.
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.png "A snippet from the ABC News article detailing that Talarico's opponent, TX Attorney General Ken Paxton, was the first Texas official to be impeached since 1917.")