Megachurch pastor and Democrat Adam Hamilton won a US Senate seat in Kansas on Tuesday, unseating Republican incumbent Roger Marshall and becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate race in the largely rural, conservative state since 1932.
The result is a blow to President Donald Trump, who carried Kansas by more than 10 points in each of his three presidential campaigns and traveled there last week, his first visit to the state since 2018, to rally support for Marshall.
Hamilton, the pastor of a Methodist megachurch who was registered as a Republican until recently, had considered running as an independent before entering the race as a Democrat.
He campaigned as a moderate, kept his distance from national party leaders and pledged not to back Chuck Schumer as Senate majority leader. He also criticised how former president Joe Biden's administration handled immigration.
'Tired of the bullies'
Hamilton largely aimed his attacks at Marshall and congressional Republicans rather than the president.
"I'm not running against President Trump," he said at their final debate.
Marshall, by contrast, told voters that supporting him meant supporting the president's agenda.
The two men also clashed over tariffs. Hamilton called for ending Trump's tariffs and requiring congressional approval for any new ones, while Marshall insisted they were working.
Many Kansas farmers, already squeezed by fuel costs driven up by the US war on Iran, have been hit by retaliatory tariffs on exports such as soybeans and wheat. Cattle ranchers were angered by a Trump plan to ease tariffs on beef imports.
In rural Neosho County, where 73 percent of voters backed Trump two years ago, Hamilton's yard signs appeared in the final weeks of the campaign.
"I think people are just desperate for a bit of normalcy," Travis Falstad, 53, a left-leaning voter in the county, told AFP news agency before the vote.
After his victory, Hamilton delivered a speech in Overland Park that mixed pastoral language with calls for bipartisanship and a critique of Washington politics.
"This is amazing. We really did make history. We're not flyover country. We're the heart of the country. Tonight we made history. The real work starts January 3," he said.
He noted that only around 25 percent of Kansas voters are registered Democrats, sharing accounts of Republicans who pledged their support on the campaign trail.
"I got elected because Kansans are saying we are tired of the bullies, we are tired of the chaos, we’re tired of the harm," Hamilton added. "This election is a rebuke of the unkindness and cruelty in Washington, DC."
