At the outset of the midterm cycle, I will admit, I did not expect to find myself in Kansas, a ruby red state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. And I _really_ did not expect to find myself as I did this morning: in Kansas, wearing a hard hat, squeezed in a dark and rattly elevator as it dropped 650 feet below ground into a salt mine. I was in Hutchinson, a city of grain, metal and salt, to write about how Kansas’ Senate election has become so competitive.
The race between **Senator Roger Marshall**, a first-term Republican, and **Adam Hamilton**, a megachurch pastor who has thrilled the state’s Democrats, was in a dead heat in the most recent Times/Siena poll. Outside groups on both sides are plowing money into the race — including $5 million from Senate Democrats’ top super PAC, The Times learned today. The Republican counterpart has promised $14 million to save the seat.
Part of the reason it’s close is Hamilton himself, who is not your typical Democratic recruit. For one thing, he was a registered Republican until earlier this year. He is the founding pastor of the Church of the Resurrection, a United Methodist congregation with 24,000 members.
He speaks in the quick, deep, extemporaneous cadence of a pastor with a podcast, which is what he is (or was — the podcast went on hiatus just before he began running for Senate). And he was really excited about visiting this salt mine. I jumped at the chance to join his tour, unsure exactly where the mine fit into his campaign but eager for a chance to spend a little bit more time with a figure who is suddenly commanding national attention.
Hamilton, his wife, LaVon, his pastor friend and a handful of campaign staff met Jeff Ollenburger, the president of a company called UV&S that has turned the empty chambers, far below the ground, into storage space. The mine sits in a salt vein that, Ollenburger explained, is part of a salt cavity that runs from Kansas City to New Mexico. Hamilton pulled a chunk of salt out of his pocket — salt that he said came from these mines.
He told me he always carries it with him and marveled at its age: 270 million years old. When we got out of the elevator, I realized, to my surprise, that we had no cellphone service. We were in a warren of rooms the size of football fields, carved out of salt that had been mined here since the 1920s.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
