Well what do you know. Evangelical Anglicans and the Salvation Army had a big night in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

That’s probably not the first thing that leaps to mind today, for political junkies who spent most of the night (the World Series finale was a big deal) watching political pundits express shock and, sometimes, grief watching a Republican newcomer upset name-brand Democratic Party candidate.

Lots of people talked about Donald Trump, of course. Some people dug a bit deeper and focused on how governor-elect Glenn Youngin managed to affirm some themes from the Trump revolution, while striving to stay as far away as possible from personal contact with Orange Man Bad.

This brings me to a headline this morning at A Journey Through NYC Religions, which is one of those niche-news websites that many religion-beat pros have in their browser favorites — because of its heady mix of hard facts and hard-to-label commentary.

Here’s the headline: “Faith trumps Trump in Virginia.”

Say what?

I think many journalists would assume — if they thought about religion angles in the Virginia race — that the members of the victorious GOP team probably came from White megachurches. But that’s not what veteran editor Tony Carnes found when he looked for the ties that bind, in this case. Here is his overture:

Most of the media attention in the Virginia elections has been on Trump and his influence. The Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe tried unsuccessfully to tag his opponent Glenn Youngkin as a Trumper.

However, under the surface of politics, there was a deeper spiritual culture and social network that connected the top three candidates in Virginia. This characteristic made the GOP effort in Virginia more winsome (indeed, that is the first name of Winsome Sears, the next Lieutenant Governor.)