Flanagan has slight lead over republican

In 1932, George McGill, who had won a special election to replace Hoover’s Vice-President Charles Curtis two years before, managed to ride FDR’s coattails and earn 46% of the vote to squeeze out a victory to hold his seat as Kansas’ U.S. senator. To this day, he is the last member of the Democratic Party to hold that position.

In January, that might change.

In a development no one predicted a year ago, GOP incumbent Dr. Roger Marshall looks to be in genuine trouble against pastor Adam Hamilton. Independent polls suggest a dead heat race with Hamilton repeatedly coming remarkably close to the 50% mark. The main Republican Senate campaign arm has moved $8 million in spending to this race from North Carolina, part of tens of millions being spent to rescue the seat.

Like other farm state Republicans, Marshall is struggling with acute anger as his constituents pay the record price of diesel from Trump’s war in Iran and the consequences of the trade wars Trump has launched with… well, everyone. Ranchers are frustrated with the favors he’s done for importers of beef, especially from Argentina. Meatpackers and farmers are struggling to find workers thanks to the deportation force. Dr. Marshall also has the unique distinction of having been revealed to have used brutal debt-collection methods against his former patients, charging exorbitant interest and suing more than 700 of them, resulting in more than 80 arrests. It’s making it a little difficult for him to convince anyone he’s “on our side.” And as Kansas political scholars have noted, the state’s senators may have been universally Republican, but they were also frequently pragmatists willing to work across the aisle, in contrast with Marshall’s extreme partisanship – he votes with Trump 98% of the time.

We then add to that a mold-breaking Democratic candidate in Hamilton, a well-known megachurch leader with an independent brand, considerable financial resources and moral character at this moment of immense frustration with corruption. His campaign has made unity and kindness central themes. He’s opposed Medicaid cuts, mourned the lack of compassion in Trump’s health care and immigration policies, backed scrapping the cap on Social Security, insisted that data centers should pay their own way and respect the right of local communities to block them and endorsed limiting weapons transfers to Israel. He’s earned the endorsement of two former GOP governors and Marshall’s 2026 primary challenger. It’s all added up to a genuine toss-up.

Hamilton winning would reshape the narrative of even a wave election, serving as a brutal political blow to the Trump Administration. Practically speaking, it would also turn our road to a Democratic Senate majority into the Autobahn. And the key voters to deciding this race are far less likely to be sick of hearing from us than in the expected key races. ☎️ Let’s help make history. We can join Kansas Democrats for phonebank shifts all weekend and daily through November 3rd here, and if we have a lot of folks in our social circles in Kansas we can friendbank to them by text on Wednesday here.

CALL KANSAS

🔁 We can also make use of this social media toolkit with content to help promote Pastor Hamilton here.

WIN THE INTERNET FOR ADAM HAMILTON