NPR reported on October 2, 2026 that five Democratic candidates who are clergy or seminarians - James Tallarico in Texas, Frederick Haynes in the Dallas area, Sarah Trongariot and Lindsay James in Iowa, and Adam Hamilton in Kansas - are running and cite the Good Samaritan parable as motivation. The discussion has turned on their mainline Protestant denominations holding no single teaching on abortion or transgender rights, and on Pew Research finding less than a third of Democrats say religion is very important in their lives. Tallarico argues Democrats confuse separation of church and state with separation of faith and politics. Coverage has also noted that less than 1 percent of Americans are transgender. Whether the candidacies can bridge the…