Kamala Harris Is a Woman of Faith. She Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Show It.

By Jessica Grose

After Joe Biden called Vice President Kamala Harris to tell her that he was dropping out of the race for president, “one of the first calls Harris made was to her longtime pastor,” The Rev. Amos C. Brown of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, Mississippi Today reported in July.

The vice president was raised in an interfaith household, and she grew up going to both a Black Baptist church and a Hindu temple. She is married to an observant Jewish man. Though her faith is not something she discusses frequently, she has a lifelong, seemingly profound connection to religion. She spoke movingly to the National Baptist Convention in 2022 about attending 23rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland, Calif. In that speech, she directly connected her administration’s policy positions — on health care, the child tax credit and civil rights — to her faith.

For example, when Harris explained the administration’s effort to cut down on health care debt and get prescription drug prices under control, she said, “the church has a role to play, but so does our government. Because we all here know God calls on us — God calls on us to help heal the sick.”

In a close election year, with an opponent who does not appear to have sincere religious convictions of his own, I see an opportunity for Harris to reclaim faith for Democrats. Because of her unique background, I think Harris could talk about her own faith without alienating the big voting bloc of nonreligious Democrats. While white Protestants and Catholics overwhelmingly support Republicans, Black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics and non-Christians are more likely to be Democrats, and getting them excited about voting for Harris matters.

Neither Harris nor Donald Trump talks about faith much on the campaign trail, Axios pointed out on Monday. Though Biden, who is Catholic, appears to have attended church more regularly than any other president in recent history, not many Americans are aware of it — only 13 percent of Americans think he’s “very religious,” according to Pew Research. In general, when Democratic candidates talk about their faith, voters gloss over it.

That’s in part because over the past several decades conservatives have been so successful in tying the Republican Party to the Christian brand, said Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University and a former pastor. “What we’re seeing is religion has become conservative and nonreligion has become liberal.”