When election watchers were considering which of this year’s Senate contests would be the most competitive, few gave Kansas a second look. This is, after all, a red state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932.
Incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall was no doubt optimistic that he could get away with just about anything and win — less because of his record and more because he has an “R” after his name, and many voters were likely to care more about party identification than merit.
But with 39 days remaining before Election Day, the Kansas contest has become so interesting that Democrats are prepared to start investing in a race they fairly recently thought was unwinnable. Politico reported:
The leaders of Senate Democrats’ flagship super PAC are “actively thinking” about whether to wade into Kansas and other even redder states as the party looks to leverage an increasingly favorable environment ahead of November.
“There’s some good arguments out in not just Kansas, in four or five other places. And we’re not just watching — we’re thinking about ways we might get involved if they stay earnestly competitive,” said JB Poersch, the president of Senate Majority PAC. “We’re actively thinking about what role will we play at that point.”
Time will tell whether the super PAC follows through — there’s obviously a big difference between writing a check and “actively thinking” about an investment — but the Senate Majority PAC’s interest is hardly shocking. There’s no shortage of overlapping elements to suggest Kansas is home to the nation’s most interesting Senate race.
The right Democrat for the right race: For decades, Democrats nominated sacrificial lambs in Kansas’ Senate races. This year, the party’s voters nominated the Rev. Adam Hamilton, a Christian pastor who leads the nation’s largest Methodist congregation and who’s proven quite adept at shrugging off the usual GOP attacks.
Hamilton is picking up prominent Republican backers: Former Republican Gov. Bill Graves had already endorsed the Democratic nominee in a Kansas City Star op-ed, and more recently, the former governor took an additional step, making a new video in support of Hamilton.
Similarly, Arch Naramore, a lifelong Republican who ran against Marshall in a GOP primary, also released a video endorsement of Marshall this week.
The bill collector: Kansans recently learned that Marshall garnished paychecks and pushed arrest warrants when his patients couldn’t afford their medical bills during his time as a physician in private practice. There’s ample evidence to suggest local voters heard about the story and consider it important.
Marshall is on the defensive: After spending years as a sycophantic surrogate for Donald Trump (around this time a year ago, Marshall told Newsmax, “With Trump, all things are possible”), the incumbent senator is suddenly criticizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and denouncing elements of the White House agenda.
Republican leaders are clearly nervous: That Vice President JD Vance headlined a rally in Kansas with roughly 50 days remaining in the election cycle specifically to boost Marshall reflects the significance of the GOP’s anxieties.
Marshall can’t shake residency questions: Dogged by questions about whether he’s still a true Kansan — his candidate statement listed his home address as a home he sold five years ago — the Kansas Reflector reported last week, “U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall established deeper roots than previously disclosed in Sarasota, Florida, where he had a vacation home. … Marshall and his wife put down roots in Sarasota, hosting fundraising events, obtaining real estate and fishing licenses and filing paperwork from the coastal Florida town while the senator worked in Washington, D.C., and claimed Kansas as home.”
Independent campaign analysts have noticed: The Cook Political Report recently tweaked its expectations for the race, shifting it from “solid” Republican to “likely” Republican, and other outlets have done the same thing, recognizing Hamilton as the kind of candidate who could defy the odds and score an upset in the reliably red state.
Noting how long it’s been since Kansans gave a Democratic Senate candidate a chance, The Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker wrote in a recent column, “Nearly 100 years of Republicanism seems long enough.” We’ll find out in 39 days whether Kansans are thinking along the same lines.
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