HUTCHINSON, Kan. — A retired farmer who voted for Republican Sen. Roger Marshall in 2020 is now backing Adam Hamilton, his Democratic challenger, because the senator’s been a “yes-man” for President Donald Trump. A community college instructor and registered Republican said she’s supporting Hamilton because he’s “a true moderate.”
Ed Berger, an 81-year-old self-described “Republican-leaning” voter who declined to say if he’d voted for Trump before, said it’s the president’s tariffs, the war in Iran and spiraling diesel and gas prices that’s making Kansas competitive.
“What’s happening here, you see it in a lot of races across the country right now,” Berger said.
It’s these frustrated voters — hundreds of whom showed up in central, rural Kansas to hear from Hamilton, some donning “Republicans for Hamilton” pins — who are putting Kansas in play. Hamilton, who leads the largest United Methodist Church congregation in the country, is tied in public polling with Marshall, a doctor who was first elected in 2020.
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The dead heat in this state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator in nearly a century “is a microcosm of all of Republicans’ problems nationally,” said a national GOP pollster, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. The race now also epitomizes the Republican strategy to save their Senate majority.
Republicans are pouring money onto the problem. The Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP-aligned leadership PAC, has funneled $14 million to Kansas, cutting from some of its buys in North Carolina, where the Democratic candidate holds a commanding polling lead. Nationally, Republicans spent $200 million more on ads in September than Democrats, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. In Senate races alone, pro-Republican groups have outspent Democrats by nearly $300 million across eight statewide contests, AdImpact found.
“Kansas Republicans have historically relied on significant turnout west of Kansas City, and if that comes, Marshall will be fine, but if that doesn’t materialize, you’re going to have problems,” the pollster said. “That’s why the infusion of cash here should, hopefully — and that’s the important word here, hopefully — do enough to mitigate the biggest problem Republicans face this cycle, which is turnout.”
National Republicans hoped their enormous financial advantage would blunt the toxic political environment. They’re dropping millions on ads attempting to disqualify their Democratic opponents and buoy their deflated base. And while that cash has helped Republicans stay competitive in some states, there’s fires popping up across the map.
“It’s hard to believe we’re messing around in Kansas or South Carolina,” one national Republican strategist lamented, referring to the $5 million the Senate Leadership Fund put into South Carolina to shore up Sen. Darline Graham. In Kansas, “you have a perfect storm brewing,” said a second national GOP strategist, “but all of that said, Kansas is red and super partisan.”
The hope, Republicans privately acknowledge, is to buy their way out of their Kansas problem.
“They’re going to try and buy it because it’s their best available option, but it’s not what Marshall is lacking. He’s lacking a ground game and a good message,” said a Kansas Republican operative, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “Marshall’s a bad candidate running a bad campaign in a bad cycle, but he’s got a 10-point cushion to work with. He might use most or all of it, but he still wins.”
Hamilton called the GOP spending onslaught “a great compliment” when asked about it after speaking to more than 150 people at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, last week — where he led the audience in singing the hymn “All Creatures of Our God and King.”
“If you are giving us $14 million in Kansas — in Kansas — that means you’re afraid,” Hamilton said, “and it means you’re recognizing that there are a lot of Republicans who might be voting for a Democrat in the state of Kansas, and that’s actually what’s happening.”
Democrats are putting up their own answer. Senate Majority PAC, the group closely aligned with Democratic Senate leadership, added $5 million to the race last weekend. People Over Politics, another pro-Hamilton super PAC, added $3 million to its own ad buys earlier this month, bringing it to $6 million in spending.
Kansas has been a trouble spot for Republicans before. But, as one senior Republican strategist put it, “there’s always a Kansas bailout.” A pattern appears to be repeating: This week, Axios reported that Chris Grant, a top Trump campaign operative, would join the Marshall campaign’s efforts in the final weeks.
In 2014, then-Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) brought in national consultant Corry Bliss to take over his campaign amid concerns about independent Greg Orman’s challenge (Roberts ultimately won by 11 percentage points). In 2020, Marshall led state Sen. Barbara Bollier by just 4 percentage points in public polling in October, but he ultimately prevailed by 11 points.
“Kansas has seen this song and dance over the decades,” said Rob Fillion, the executive director of the Kansas Republican Party. “Now, I’m a realist, and I don’t think Roger Marshall is going to win by 11 points, just because it’s a midterm election — but I see that as the reason he still wins. Republicans typically come home, and I think Republicans are hesitant to take polls.”
Trump is taking another step to bring Republicans home: He plans to host a rally in Wichita next week, extending a run of campaign stops in states that his party won comfortably just two years ago.
In a statement, a Marshall spokesperson said “Kansans have a clear choice” between “a senator who has fought for and delivered major wins for our farmers” and “a Chuck Schumer-funded Democrat.”
Samantha Cantrell, a National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson, called Hamilton a “pedophile protector who would vote with Democrats like Chuck Schumer,” referring to local coverage of Hamilton’s handling of a report of child sex abuse at a church camp two decades ago.
But Kansas Republicans said Hamilton’s unique profile, coupled with Marshall’s own weaknesses, puts this seat in particular danger. “People know Hamilton, his church, for years,” said a second Kansas GOP operative, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly.
“Hamilton has a lot of name recognition and he’s well respected, while Roger Marshall has lost touch. That’s the feeling on the ground,” they added. “Marshall is not charismatic, and he’s had a slew of problems pop up.”
Those problems include reports of him suing more than 700 patients, some of whom were arrested for missed court dates. Marshall has also spent taxpayer money traveling to Sarasota, Florida, where he once owned property, but he told KAKE last week that accusations by the Hamilton campaign that he lives in Florida are “all lies.”
Interest in Hamilton, even in rural Kansas, was on vivid display last week as he swung through standing-room-only stops in Salina, Lindsborg and Hutchinson, a trio of small cities that dot central, rural Kansas and cut through Marshall’s former congressional district. Hamilton laces his stump speeches with biblical passages, integrating call-and-responses from the crowd in his storytelling that demonstrates his years delivering sermons.
“I was watching President Trump’s inauguration, and I was praying, ‘God, please give him wisdom. Please help him have compassion.’ … I can tell you, just because you’re a pastor does not mean your prayers are answered,” Hamilton said to laughter in the crowd, crammed inside a Salina bookstore.
Hamilton initially considered running as an independent, but ultimately “he was convinced by Democrats in high places that the two-party system is too locked in,” said Stephanie Sharp, a Republican strategist in Kansas who advised Hamilton in the early stages of his campaign. Sharp, a member of Hamilton’s church, said Hamilton knows he must win Republicans and independents because Democrats make up only a quarter of the electorate, and “no one wins with a quarter of the voters.”
He’s leaned into those differences with his party on several issues, including on who might lead the Senate caucus in 2027. He won’t vote for Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, he said in an interview. (“No disrespect to him,” he added.)
“It’s time for new leadership, time for younger leadership, time for fresh ideas, and in Kansas, Chuck Schumer is a liability, not an asset,” Hamilton said. “And that’s true, I think, almost in every state in the union.”
That pitch, Democrats hope, will mean more coming from a candidate without a voting record and with an in-state brand. He’s also capitalizing on a strategy laid out by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, a moderate who maximized turnout in the Kansas City and Wichita suburbs and lost by less in the rural counties like those Hamilton campaigned in last week.
Hamilton isn’t positioning himself as the proverbial fighter, like other Democrats this fall. Instead, at Bethany College he called himself a “radical centrist,” not the “milquetoasty middle.” He is “just as determined to try to listen to those liberals” and “just as determined not to demonize the conservatives,” he said.
“He’s able to bring conservatives along on issues like ICE, and he’s able to bring progressives along about abortions. He doesn’t want abortion, but he doesn’t want women bleeding out,” Sharp said. “He’s so good at explaining the humanity of an issue, explaining the gray.”
Leaning into his Christian values appealed to James Bowden, a 39-year-old independent who attended a packed meet and greet at the Red Fern Booksellers in Salina. He “dragged” his mother, Nancy, a Trump voter, to hear Hamilton’s pitch because he wanted her to vote with “the knowledge of who they are, rather than the rumor of who they are.”
Nancy Bowden said that while she “agrees with” Hamilton “on a lot of things,” she can’t vote for him because of her “staunch belief about abortion and about transgender.” (“I can’t vote for a Democrat because of that, but I do like him,” she added.)
Hamilton addressed his position on abortion later that day, recounting how his own mother, who was 17 at the time, considered aborting him in utero. Talking to a voter who asked about his position on abortion rights, Hamilton said he felt “this moral tension, and at the same time, a conviction that there needs to be safe and legal access to abortion.”
“I know there are Republicans who are sick of what’s going on right now,” James Bowden said after Hamilton’s stump speech. “I think might dad might be. Mom might have a different opinion.”
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