Democrats are making an old GOP line of attack their own — and it's working

During George W. Bush's presidency, the term "values voters" was used to describe socially conservative voters who were strongly motivated by their opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Other Bush supporters might have been motivated by national security or tax policy, but the "values voters" focused primarily on social issues — and GOP strategists, working closely with the Religious Right, made a point of getting them to the polls.

"Values voters," on the whole, favored Bush over Democratic nominee John Kerry in the 2004 election. But journalist E.J. Dionne Jr., in a New York Times op-ed, argues that a new type of "values voter" is emerging in the 2026 midterms: one that is being aggressively pursued by Democrats and dislikes the values of the second Trump administration and the MAGA movement.

"The assumption took hold that Americans who cared about 'values' were conservatives animated by opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage," Dionne explains in the Times. "The 2026 campaign is reminding us that this narrow view of how voters think about values is out of step with a long American tradition that gave rise to moral appeals for improving society as a whole, particularly at times of great economic and technological change. We are witnessing the return of a politics of morality organized around the injustices of the economic system and an array of related problems: the costs of technological change, the unraveling of community, civil rights, and financial and work-balance issues confronting families."

Dionne adds, "These themes are powerful in the campaigns of Democrats this year across the party's philosophical spectrum — and it's about time."

President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies often attack Democrats as anti-religion, but Dionne notes that religion has long played a role in liberal and progressive politics —including the Black church during the civil rights movement. And Dionne cites James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian and the Democratic nominee in Texas' 2026 U.S. Senate race, as the "most explicit" example of "the resurgence of a Christian left."

"He is inspired by Jesus' overturning of the money changers' tables outside the temple, described in all four Gospels," Dionne says of Talarico. "The top of his campaign website features Mr. Talarico's signature line, 'It's time to start flipping tables.' His campaign against the Republican nominee, Ken Paxton, will provide the starkest contest between the old values debate and the new one. Mr. Paxton has denounced Mr. Talarico's theology and issued familiar attacks from the Religious Right, notably around trans issues. The scandalous personal baggage weighing down Mr. Paxton will complicate his talk about morality. But it won't stop him from using it to appeal to the remnant of the old values voters who helped Mr. Trump win in 2024."

Other examples of Democrats with an appeal to "values," Dionne notes, include Georgia Sens. Raphael Warnock (a Baptist minister) and Jon Ossoff, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (who is Jewish) and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

"Americans have quarreled over Prohibition, birth control, abortion, sexuality and other aspects of individual behavior," Dionne argues. "But we have also confronted the corruption of political and economic systems and our responsibilities to put things right. We are in a transition in how we talk about values because now is a moment to tend to the demands of our common life — and our obligations to one another."