Adam Hamilton, a Democrat and United Methodist pastor, defeated Republican Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas on Tuesday, taking a Senate seat Republicans have held for decades.
He is the first Democrat Kansas has elected to the Senate since 1932.
The Senate's list of Kansas senators shows Democrat George McGill held this seat from December 1930 to January 1939. Marshall took office in January 2021. Republicans have kept it continuously since McGill left office in 1939.
Hamilton led early. With more than 665,000 votes tallied at 8:45 p.m. Central, he had roughly 380,000 votes to Marshall's 265,000, with Libertarian David Graham at about 15,000, according to unofficial Kansas Secretary of State results reported by the Kansas Reflector.
Nothing is official until the state canvass.
Who Hamilton is
Hamilton is a Johnson County pastor and a co-founder of one of the largest United Methodist congregations in the country. He beat 10 other candidates for the Democratic nomination. His campaign centered on affordability, health care and ending the war with Iran, and the only Republican who had challenged Marshall in the primary ended up endorsing Hamilton for the general election.
The race against Marshall
Marshall, a former OB-GYN from central Kansas, was seeking a second term after first winning the seat in 2020. President Trump and Vice President JD Vance each made two visits to Kansas for him. Ad spending topped $84.5 million, the most for any election in Kansas history, according to AdImpact figures reported by the Reflector.
Kansas was one of seven Republican-held seats Democrats won Tuesday, giving the party a Senate majority.
