Nearly 30 pastors have thrown their support behind Ken Paxton's U.S. Senate campaign through a new coalition called Pastors for Paxton, while James Talarico has assembled his own faith network featuring a Houston bishop, a Dallas-area rabbi and a Dallas-area Muslim chaplain. The dueling announcements, both launched this month, underscore how central religion has become to a Texas Senate race that multiple recent polls show is essentially a toss-up heading toward the Nov. 3 election.
Two Coalitions, Two Visions
Paxton's campaign unveiled Pastors for Paxton with 27 faith leaders from across Texas, a group described as drawn largely from evangelical Christian and charismatic backgrounds, according to dallasnews.com. The campaign said coalition members would lead their communities in prayer ahead of Election Day. A separate report from christianpost.com described the same group as a faith-based coalition of nearly 30 pastors launched last week — a discrepancy in the exact count that neither outlet resolved.
The announcement came, per dallasnews.com, just as Talarico, a Democrat, was launching his own faith coalition. That group, Faithful Texans for Talarico, held a virtual kickoff this month that drew about 60 attendees and featured remarks from Bishop James Dixon II of Houston, Rabbi Nancy Kasten of the Dallas area and Muslim chaplain Saadia Ahmed, also of the Dallas area, according to the Houston Chronicle. Dixon described Talarico as a vessel of God, a voice for God and a man of valor, the Chronicle reported, and praised him for supporting separation between churches and the state while calling for an end to faith-based hate.
Prayers and Scripture at a Conroe Rally
At a Paxton rally in Conroe this week, pastors Steve Riggle and James Buntrock led prayers over the candidate, citing Romans 13 as they asked for divine backing. Riggle, a Woodlands pastor, prayed, “We pray, God, you'll give him favor with voters,” and also asked that deception be exposed and truth be known, per the same Christian Post account. Pastors supporting Paxton also prayed generally for God's strength and support for him, the Chronicle reported, while seven other pastors from Grace Woodlands added their names to the list of Houston-area supporters.
Pastors for Paxton has shared a list of 52 Houston-area pastors backing his Senate bid, according to the Chronicle. The Chronicle also reported that many Christian Paxton supporters are motivated by Talarico's positions on abortion, gay marriage and gender transition, and say those positions dangerously reject the Bible's authority. The dallasnews.com report noted that Pastors for Paxton follows an earlier split within Texas evangelical circles: leaders including Robert Jeffress, Jack Graham and Gus Reyes had aligned with Paxton's primary opponent, Sen. John Cornyn, through a faith advisory council.
Talarico's Case: Silence on Abortion, Openness on Gender
Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, has staked out a markedly different theological framing. At a CNN and Jubilee town hall, he said, “We're both Christians, and the Bible is silent on the issue of abortion,” while stating he wants fewer abortions and unplanned pregnancies, according to cnn.com. He has also said God is non-binary, per the Chronicle, a statement that sits alongside his broader embrace of more liberal mainline Christian traditions that have grown more open to gay pastors or to abortion in some circumstances.
Talarico credited his longtime pastor, Rev. Jim Rigby, with encouraging him to run for Senate as a form of ministry, christianpost.com reported. Faithful Texans for Talarico launched with an endorsement from Jordan Walker Ross, who plays Little James on The Chosen, the outlet noted. Not every pastor in Talarico's camp agrees with him on every issue — the Chronicle reported that some supporters disagree with his positions on abortion and gay marriage, or say those issues simply are not their top political priorities, pointing instead to government help for the poor and concerns that Republicans are censoring Black history.
Paxton, meanwhile, has built his record as an aggressive opponent of abortion in any circumstance. He has sued out-of-state doctors he accused of shipping abortion pills into Texas, and in 2023 he threatened to sue hospitals that allowed a Texas woman to terminate a pregnancy her doctors said was not viable and threatened her life, according to the Chronicle.
What the Polls Show
The religious divide tracks closely with recent survey data. Fox News and Marist polls found that 74% to 78% of white evangelical voters back Paxton, compared with just 21% to 22% for Talarico, the Chronicle reported. A September New York Times/Siena poll found Texas Protestants favoring Paxton 62% to 36%, while Catholics were nearly evenly split, 49% for Talarico to 47% for Paxton.
More recent polling suggests the overall race has tightened considerably. A ReconMR/Siena poll of 617 likely Texas voters released Oct. 13 showed Talarico ahead 48% to 44%, with 59% of Protestants backing Paxton against 34% for Talarico, and 38% of Catholics for Paxton versus 53% for Talarico, according to Religion News Service. A UMass Lowell/YouGov poll put the two candidates tied at 45% each, with 55% of Protestants and 53% of Catholics favoring Paxton while 63% of voters identifying as “nothing in particular” and 71% of “all others” preferred Talarico. That same survey found voters who attend religious services less than weekly preferred Talarico 53% to 47%, while weekly attendees favored Paxton 60% to 40%. Christianpost.com separately cited a CBS News poll showing Talarico with 51% support to Paxton's 49%.
A Religiously Diverse but Mostly Christian Electorate
Texas remains overwhelmingly Christian but far from religiously uniform. The 2023-24 Pew Religious Landscape Study found 67% of Texas adults identify as Christian, 6% with other religions and 26% as religiously unaffiliated, according to the Texas Politics Project. A December 2025 UT survey found about 41% of the Texas electorate classified as religious, and among that religious segment, 57% identified as Republicans, 33% as Democrats and 10% as independents. More than two-thirds of Texas Democrats were classified as less or non-religious, the Texas Politics Project found, concluding that religiosity was not a major factor shaping Democrats' views of Talarico.
Economic concerns still unite voters across faith lines more than social issues divide them. Pew found the economy was rated very important by at least 81% of voters across major faith groups heading into the midterms, including 89% of Black Protestants, 87% of Catholics, 83% of white mainline Protestants and 81% of white evangelical Protestants, per Religion News Service. Abortion remained a priority mainly for white evangelicals, 58% of whom called it very important to their vote — a gap that helps explain why Paxton and Talarico are courting pulpits so differently as Election Day approaches.
