The idea of Democrats winning a U.S. Senate race in Kansas, something which has not happened since 1932, is admittedly a bit of a stretch. However, please take about three minutes of your time to consider some recent news out of the Sunflower state (for those of you who don’t know, that is the state nickname of Kansas).
Adam Hamilton is not your average Democratic nominee
This may be quite surprising, but the Democratic nominee, Rev. Adam Hamilton, is the senior pastor of the largest church in Kansas, a Methodist congregation called Resurrection, with an average weekly attendance of 25,000. Hamilton describes himself as moderate. He significantly outraised Republican incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall, $3.1 million to $600,000.
On August 4, Hamilton easily won the Democratic primary, scoring 34.8% of the vote in a crowded 11-candidate field.
Two Democratic polls shows a close race
Last month, an internal poll from Adam Hamilton’s campaign showed him down only four points against Marshall. This month, another Democratic poll, this one for the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC, showed Hamilton within one point of Marshall.
Democrats can win in Kansas
Kansas currently has a Democratic governor, Laura Kelly. She first won in the Democratic wave election year of 2018, and was re-elected in 2022, a difficult year for Democrats. Back when Morning Consult was conducting quarterly polls of all 50 governors, a practice which I wish they would resume, Kelly’s approval rating at the end of 2025 was a net +26. At the time, this made her as popular in deep red Kansas as Gov. Gavin Newsom was in deep blue California, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was in deep purple Michigan. (Yes—I made a Deep Purple reference in a political article!)
Granted, Donald Trump won Kansas by 16 points in 2024, which reinforces the obvious: Kansas will be a difficult nut for Democrats to crack this year. However, over one-third of the 109 contested special elections that have taken place since 2024 have shown a pro-Democratic swing of 16 points or more, according to data collected by The Downballot.
So yes, Kansas is a stretch, but it is also not impossible.
There are good reasons to invest some of your small dollars in Kansas
You might be hesitant to spend any of your limited donation budget on a longshot-ish race in Kansas, and I get that. I understand that you cannot donate to every worthy Democratic campaign, and that you want your donations to make the biggest impact possible for the causes you believe in.
However, here are two reasons why small donations to Kansas are actually a good bang for your buck:
Small dollars go much further in Kansas than they would in more populous and expensive states.
If Kansas can stay competitive, then national Republican groups will be forced to pull money they had planned to spend on elections in other states, like Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, or Ohio, and redirect them to shore up Kansas. So, in a very real way, making Kansas competitive helps Democrats all around the country.
I have put together an ActBlue page where you can split a donation between Rev. Adam Hamilton, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Kansas, and Bowers Kerbel Media, the two-person, reader-supported, pro-democracy and pro-Democratic organization that runs Wolves and Sheep and the Bowers News Media news and activism email list.
Talarico is pretty religious, but not a nutjob, and seems to be pressuring the political machine in Texas, so maybe this is the beginning of a wave. I grew up in Kansas. It is still quite rural, and farmers have been royally screwed by Trump so maybe there is hope. The Methodists are a reasonably sane group. I have read a little history (my brother and sister in law go to the Methodist church) and it looks like one of the better ones. Long shots can still hit the target.