📲 Get the latest on the midterms & more in the NPR App DODGE CITY, Kan. — If ever there were a place to symbolize both opportunities and obstacles that Democrats and Republicans face politically this midterm election, it would be Kansas. Two years after President Trump earned 57% of the vote, Kansas Republicans are grappling with the possibility that a Democrat could win a U.S. Senate race for the first time in nearly a century.
Adam Hamilton, a self-billed "independent-minded Democrat," has led in several polls against Republican Sen. Both parties have redirected tens of millions of dollars in recent weeks to try and shape the surprising toss-up race. The president announced Tuesday he would campaign in Wichita next week for Marshall and other Republicans on the ticket.
But after eight years of Democratic governor Laura Kelly who is term-limited, Republicans are also hoping to retake control of the state's top office as one of the few pickup opportunities in an otherwise daunting midterm environment. State Senate President Ty Masterson, the Republican candidate, leads in polls against Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher in a race that is less nationalized than other competitive gubernatorial races around the country.
The last-minute shift in national attention to the Sunflower State is reflective of how unpopular Trump's second term agenda has become with voters, especially in typically Republican states in the Midwest that have been disproportionately affected by rising fuel prices and tariffs. As early voting gets underway in Kansas, neither side is taking the voters for granted. At a get-out-the-vote event in Lawrence Monday, Hamilton told the crowd that his priorities if elected are tackling affordability and health care, but also restoring "human decency" to politics.
"Now listen, I had somebody say to me, 'Look, I don't want somebody who's going to build bridges, I want somebody who's going to crush the Republicans,'" he said. "But here's the thing: if you want that in a state with only 25% of the population who are Democrats, you'll never get them elected. "And if you did, they become part of the problem instead of part of the solution." Hamilton is the founding pastor of Church of the Resurrection, the country's largest United Methodist Church congregation across its multiple campuses, and positions himself as a moderate voice seeking to tame rabid partisanship that has dominated modern politics.
"We've got to find solutions that will be a compromise between what the Republicans want and the Democrats want, but are going to end up getting something done as opposed to right now, where that doesn't happen very often," he said. At a time when the Democratic Party brand is unpopular with voters, too, Hamilton is quick to point out that he's not a Democrat you might find in a blue state. "We've been trying to make clear in our commercials that a Kansas Democrat is a bit different than a New York Democrat or a Los Angeles Democrat, and not just a little — a lot different," Hamilton told NPR.
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