The Rev. Adam Hamilton on Tuesday became the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Kansas since the Great Depression, according to The Associated Press, stunning Senator Roger Marshall, a one-term Republican.
Mr. Hamilton, a centrist from the Kansas City area who was registered as a Republican until February, rode voters’ frustration with the economy and disenchantment with Mr. Marshall to the upset victory. Mr. Marshall had campaigned with President Trump in the final days of the race and received late financial support from the national Republican Party, but it was not enough.
Mr. Hamilton, in capping his pulpit-to-politics journey, became the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Kansas since 1932.
There had been subtle signs in recent years that Kansas was shifting to the left, electing a Democratic governor for two terms and a gay Native American Democrat to Congress in 2018.
And signs of discontent with Mr. Marshall appeared as early as March 2025, when he had to abruptly end a town hall-style meeting and walk out because voters were so angry with him.
Still, Mr. Trump carried Kansas by 16 points in 2024, and the race was not initially expected to be competitive. Both parties started to focus more on it in the early fall after opinion polls showed the candidates in a dead heat.
Mr. Marshall found himself on the defensive after a New York Times report that he had filed lawsuits against more than 700 patients with outstanding bills during his decades-long career as an obstetrician-gynecologist and routinely charged patients an 18 percent annual interest rate. In the final days of the race, a former patient of Mr. Marshall’s filed a class-action lawsuit against him and his former medical practice, accusing him of charging illegally high interest rates as he pursued patients over unpaid bills.
And late in the campaign, Mr. Marshall went rogue, filming an ad in which he attributed his past debt collection efforts to a need to “keep the lights on.” After shooting the spot against the advice of his aides, he began to send the video around, and it eventually landed on social media the Saturday before the election.
His campaign also contended with an ethics complaint in October from a watchdog group claiming that he had illegally used taxpayer funds to pay campaign staff, and a late-race revelation that he had an unpaid bakery bill of $678.75 from his primary night watch party in 2020. (Mr. Marshall subsequently paid the bill with interest.)
Mr. Hamilton, the founder of the 24,000-member Church of the Resurrection, the largest church in Kansas and the nation’s largest United Methodist congregation, also had particular strengths.
He presented as a sure-footed centrist with decades of experience working crowds. He proved to be a strong fund-raiser. And before he made a single campaign promise, many in Kansas were familiar with him from TV broadcasts of his church services.
Recruited by the Kansas Democratic Party after considering an independent run, Mr. Hamilton argued that Mr. Marshall was siding with Mr. Trump over Kansas. The race played out as challenges piled up for farmers in the deeply Republican and heavily agricultural state.
Ranchers there are contending with high costs of diesel, gasoline and fertilizer because of the war in Iran, policies that sent a flood of beef imports into the United States with lower levies and an immigration crackdown that limited the number of farm workers.
As Election Day approached, Kansas was also dealing with a drought, hampering yields of soybeans, wheat and corn and intensifying farmers’ misery. The approval rating of Mr. Trump, who won Kansas by double digits in three straight presidential elections, slipped well underwater in the state by this fall, according to polls.
Mr. Marshall sought to fend off Mr. Hamilton by arguing that the Democrat was a novice who would be beholden to party leaders, such as Senator Chuck Schumer of New York.
Mr. Hamilton parried those attacks by vowing to oppose Mr. Schumer’s bid to become majority leader should Democrats win the Senate, and by casting himself as a cooperative, independent-minded lawmaker comfortable working with Republicans.
He described former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s immigration policies as a “disaster” and denounced the growth in the national debt.
Mr. Hamilton had received some valuable endorsements. Two Republican former Kansas governors, Bill Graves and Mike Hayden, backed him. Arch Naramore, a centrist Republican who won a fifth of the vote in the Republican Senate primary, supported Mr. Hamilton, saying that Mr. Marshall was a “sycophant” for Mr. Trump.
And former Senator Sheila Frahm of Kansas, a Republican who served briefly in Senator Bob Dole’s seat after he resigned in 1996, endorsed Mr. Hamilton, too. She had supported Mr. Marshall in 2020.
“I was excited about his candidacy,” Ms. Frahm said in an interview, referring to Mr. Marshall. “And really it’s been hard to say that we’ve even seen him since.”
And like many others in Kansas, she said she had known Mr. Hamilton for years and that she felt he could work with “all kinds of people.” But ultimately Kansas voters were venting frustration with economic conditions, Ms. Frahm said.
“We’re just unhappy,” she said.
The last Democrat to win a Senate race in Kansas was George S. McGill. He narrowly defeated a Republican in 1932, as deep dissatisfaction with President Herbert Hoover’s handling of the Great Depression powered Democratic gains across the country and sent Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the White House.
Senator McGill was defeated by 12 points in 1938.
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