In the first installment of a two-part column, University of Pennsylvania professor Marci A. Hamilton discusses how the 2026 midterm election will test the religious identity of the United States, focusing on the White Evangelical Christian Nationalists who claim America is a “Christian country” and their growing influence in the Trump Administration through figures like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Project 2025, and allied groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom. Professor Hamilton argues that these nationalists rely on a revisionist history that erases the nation’s founding religious diversity, that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority and a compliant Republican Congress have helped them pursue theocracy without amending the Constitution, and that because most Americans reject Christian Nationalism, voters should use the midterms to stop it.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. California staying a lower court injunction against an executive order that involves the Postal Service in regulating mail-in ballots ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Professor Sarat contends that the ruling abandons the Court’s established Purcell principle, needlessly injecting chaos into the upcoming election and undermining democratic integrity by favoring executive overreach.