Three progressive Democratic Senate candidates – Florida's Angie Nixon, Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed and Texas's James Talarico – are invoking Jesus Christ to frame their left-wing policies as morally rooted, echoing tactics long used by the Republican Party's "Moral Majority" movement. The strategy comes as each faces Republican attacks branding them as socialist or extremist, suggesting faith-based messaging is becoming a tool progressives use to counter such labels and connect with voters ahead of the midterms.

Nixon, who upset establishment-backed Alexander Vindman and later joined the Democratic Socialists of America, told a Jacksonville church congregation that "Jesus was a radical" who fought for the same causes she champions, as she prepares to face Republican Senator Ashley Moody. El-Sayed, a Muslim candidate running against Mike Rogers in Michigan, made a similar comparison on a podcast, saying Jesus was "considered radical in his time, too." Talarico, contesting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's seat, has gone furthest, training to become a Presbyterian minister and previously arguing scripture supports a non-binary conception of God, a comment Republicans have used to attack him.