The Only Openly Non-Religious Member of Congress Easily Won His Primary

By Hemant Mehta

This wasn’t one of the races anyone was paying close attention to last night, but I think it still merits mention.

In California’s 2nd congressional district, Rep. Jared Huffman, the only openly non-theistic member of Congress, coasted through his top-two-advance-to-November primary. He’ll face Republican Dale Mensing in what should be a (thankfully) uneventful race.

What’s notable is that this is the first election Huffman has been in since coming out as a humanist last November, and it’s obvious that his announcement didn’t affect his re-election campaign one bit.

When he was thinking about declaring himself a humanist last year, the Washington Post reported that, while the private responses he received were overwhelmingly positive, there was one friend who thought it was a bad idea because “it could hurt him politically.”

It didn’t hurt him politically.

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