Religion and the 2026 Midterms: Polarization and Pursuing the Common Good

David Crary has been a reporter, editor and bureau chief with The Associated Press since 1976. Since mid-2021, he has been news director of AP's Global Religion Team. Crary joined the AP in Mississippi, later worked in Colorado and on the AP's international desk in New York, then covered East Africa and Southern Africa from 1985-1990 from bases in Kenya and South Africa. His assignments in Africa included the Ethiopian famine, the uprising against apartheid and Nelson Mandela's release from prison. From 1990-95, he was news editor at AP's Paris bureau, while serving eight stints in Sarajevo covering the war in Bosnia. He was named bureau chief in Toronto in 1995 and transferred to New York in 1999, where for 22 years he was a national writer primarily covering volatile social issues such as abortion, LGBTQ rights, and child welfare. 

Melissa Deckman is CEO of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and a nationally recognized political scientist whose work examines how gender, religion, and age shape Americans' political attitudes and behavior. 

Deckman is the author of The Politics of Gen Z, which tells the story of how America's youngest generation is engaging with politics, and the deepening gender divide reshaping its views. She also wrote Tea Party Women, which explores the role of women in conservative politics. Her first book, School Board Battles: The Christian Right in Local Politics, won the American Political Science Association's Hubert Morken Award for the best book on religion and politics. 

A sought-after expert, Deckman has shared her research and commentary in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Politico, The Hill, Axios, and Newsweek, among other outlets. She also writes regularly for PRRI's Substack. Before becoming PRRI's CEO, she was the Louis L. Goldstein Professor of Public Affairs at Washington College. 

Deckman earned her Ph.D. in political science from American University and her bachelor's degree in political science from St. Mary's College of Maryland. 

Michele Dunne OFS is a professed Secular Franciscan and is the executive director of the Franciscan Action Network (FAN). Before coming to FAN, her career focused on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. From 2006 until 2021, she headed programs focused on peace, human rights, and democracy in the Middle East at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Atlantic Council. Before that, she served for nearly 20 years in the U.S. Department of State, including assignments in Jerusalem and Cairo. She holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University and lives in Washington DC with her husband.