Republican-turned-Democrat aims to flip Kansas Senate seat blue for first time in over 90 years

“Traveling to Sarasota? Say hi to Senator Roger Marshall.” 

Colorful billboards popped up in Kansas with that slogan Tuesday night, as the state’s Senate race heats up for the first time in nearly a century. 

The billboards depict the incumbent Republican senator, Roger Marshall, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and lounging in a beach chair against a tropical backdrop. Placed by United Futures PAC, a super PAC supporting his Democratic opponent, Rev. Adam Hamilton, it’s an attempt to hammer home one of Democrats’ main attacks: that Marshall is out of touch with Kansans.

It’s a message they hope will resonate.

“Right now there’s a perfect storm for Hamilton,” said Bob Beatty, chair of the Department of Political Science at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. “There’s no doubt he can win.” He pointed to President Trump’s unpopularity, a troubled agriculture sector and Hamilton appealing to moderate Republicans as factors that could flip the seat. Hamilton only switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democratic in April, when he declared his Senate candidacy. 

Although Mr. Trump won Kansas by 16 points in 2024, his approval rating has fallen to 39%, as high fuel prices from the Iran war and tariffs cut into the bottom lines of two of the most reliable Republican voting blocs in the state: farmers and ranchers. 

According to AAA, the price of diesel — which fuels trucks and heavy farm machinery — is up 79% compared to a year ago, and jumped nearly a dollar in just the last 30 days, throwing harvest profit projections into a downward spiral.

And Mr. Trump’s decision to suspend tariffs on 300 metric tons of Argentine beef to bring down prices has hurt ranchers, who are now facing losses of up to $600 per head. 

The Trump administration’s immigration policies are also taking an economic toll — a recent string of unexpected Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in western Kansas caused an outcry from some industry leaders, saying the hit to their workforces will lead to higher beef prices. 

Following the industry reaction, Marshall distanced himself from Mr. Trump. He pushed back on the raids in a post on X: “When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement.” 

Marshall has generally defended Mr. Trump’s Iran strategy, and predicted energy prices would drop after the war ends. He said in a debate earlier this month: “I want the war to be over as soon as anybody does.”

Marshall, who previously represented Kansas in the House, was elected to the Senate in 2020 by an 11-point margin and is now running for his second term. But in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, history is against Hamilton. 

“If this were another state besides Kansas, he’d be the clear frontrunner,” said Beatty. “But because of Kansas’ history, people aren’t going to believe it until it happens.”

Recent polls show Hamilton, a pastor who leads the largest United Methodist church in Kansas, has a fighting chance. The most recent polls show a virtually tied race: An Emerson College/Nexstar poll released in mid-September showed Hamilton slightly ahead of Marshall at 45% to 43%, a statistical tie for a poll with a 3.6-point margin of error. Both the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball have recently changed their race ratings from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican.”

A political novice, Hamilton founded the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, which says it has more than 23,000 members and nine locations across the Kansas City area. He describes himself as a centrist.

Marshall has characterized Hamilton as a liberal Democrat whose “mask is slipping.” On Monday, he posted on X: “Make no mistake: Adam Hamilton is a radical Democrat, and his sermons are identical to the Democratic Party platform” — pointing to sermons in which Hamilton talked about issues like climate change and diversity. Attack ads against Hamilton paint him as a “snake oil salesman” profiting excessively from his megachurch. 

Hamilton is attempting to tie Marshall to Mr. Trump’s track record, painting him as a puppet of Washington, disconnected from the concerns of Kansans. 

But some experts remain skeptical that Hamilton will be able to win over the entire state.

“It’s hard for a lot of voters to cross party lines,” said Greg Vonnahe, a political science professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

“While Democrats feel optimistic about Hamilton, in the back of their minds I think they’re also thinking ‘we’ve seen a version of this before,'” he added. “Sometimes the way politics look in Eastern Kansas and Johnson County can be really different from what the conversation is in Western Kansas.”

The billboards, displayed in Kansas City and Wichita, refer to Marshall’s vacation home in Sarasota, Florida, which Hamilton often raises, alleging that Marshall owns more valuable property and spends more time in Florida than Kansas. His Sarasota home, which Marshall says sustained hurricane damage and has been uninhabitable for two years, was listed for sale in March. 

“Roger Marshall asks Kansans for their votes every six years and then heads down to his home in Florida, a long way from the farm towns and small cities hit hard by tariffs,  the war in Iran and rising costs,” said a spokesperson for United Futures PAC. “Our billboard reminds voters that their senator has already chosen where he’d rather be, and in November they get to decide whether to send him to Florida full time.”

During a recent debate at the Kansas State Fair, Marshall retaliated against jabs about his second home, pointing out that Hamilton — whom he called a “very successful megachurch CEO” — owns four homes. Hamilton said two of the homes were purchased for his daughters.

Marshall told a jeering audience that his home was “a short hour’s drive down a gravel road here” and sits on 320 acres. He explained he spent time in Florida to see his grandchildren.

“You don’t live here!” chanted the crowd.

Marshall’s opponents have also seized on the fact that he has not held a town hall in Kansas since 2025 — when he walked out of one after some contentious exchanges. He has said that in-person town halls “became non-productive and dangerous,” according to the Junction City Post.

As affordability and healthcare have become key issues in the midterms, a potential point of vulnerability for Marshall, a former obstetrician-gynecologist, is the revelation in a New York Times report that he has sued his patients over medical bills. 

For over 20 years, Marshall owned or was co-owner of Heartland Regional OBGYN, a practice in Great Bend, Kansas. According to the Times investigation, he and his lawyers filed lawsuits against his patients over outstanding bills, suing 700 patients and garnishing their wages. Eighty-one of his patients were arrested for missing court dates. The Times reported that many of those patients were from rural Kansas, and some were low-income new mothers whose labor and delivery bills were overdue. 

A viral Hamilton campaign ad about Marshall’s debt collection practices featured a former patient who said she was arrested while eight months pregnant for missing a $50 payment. Lawyers for Marshall sent a cease-and-desist letter to Hamilton, alleging that the ad is false and “defamatory.” 

“Over the years Marshall has called himself Doc Marshall, building a brand as a country doctor,” explained Beatty, “so the idea of Doc Marshall arresting pregnant women or handcuffing new mothers has become a big issue.”

Marshall has pushed back on the allegations. During the Kansas State Fair debate, he said his medical practice gave free care to many patients and he “took everybody that walked through the door,” but “just like every other business,  we had to, the common business practice, at the end of the day, turn some people to collections.”

Hamilton is hoping that he can convince enough Republicans, who make up 45% of the Kansas electorate, to overlook his party affiliation when they go to the polls. He considered running as an independent, but says he decided to run as a Democrat based on feedback from an 18-city listening tour around Kansas. 

But on Election Day, the path to winning for Hamilton will be steep. He will have to turn out the 24% of Democrats in the electorate in droves — as well as the majority of the state’s unaffiliated voters — and win 25% of Republicans. He’s hoping to win over moderate Republicans in the Kansas City area, where Hamilton is from and where his church is based, but 25% is still a tall order. 

Whether he can turn out Republicans in central and western Kansas remains to be seen. 

Last week, Marshall’s opponent in the Republican primary, Arch Naramore, endorsed Hamilton, soon after the state’s popular former GOP governor, Bill Graves, also crossed party lines to back Hamilton.  

But Republicans have been throwing their biggest stars at helping Marshall win reelection. Vice President JD Vance campaigned with Marshall in the state in September. And Mr. Trump announced his “complete and total endorsement” for Marshall in a video recorded from the Oval Office, in which he called Hamilton a “radical left lunatic” and told Kansans that Marshall “will never ever let you down.” 

But Washburn University’s Beatty expressed some doubt about how helpful the president’s support would be to Marshall: “Trump isn’t doing Marshall any favors.”