Pastor Adam Hamilton beat Sen. Roger Marshall to flip Kansas’s Senate seat — the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Kansas since 1932, ending the longest such streak in the country.
Adam Hamilton had never run for office before this year. What he had done was build a church. In 1990 he founded the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City suburbs, and he is still its senior pastor. It grew into the largest United Methodist congregation in the country, with about 25,000 members.
Hamilton, 62, is a fifth-generation Kansan and the author of more than 30 books on faith. He ran as something unusual: a Democrat who called himself a “radical centrist” and said plainly that both parties had left ordinary families behind on the cost of living.
He beat Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican seeking a second term, in a state that has sent only Republicans to the Senate for more than 90 years. The last Democrat elected was George McGill, in 1932.
Watch his first votes on party leadership — during the campaign, Hamilton said he would not support Chuck Schumer as the Democrats’ Senate leader.
Fast facts
- Age: 62
- Party: Democratic
- Office: U.S. Senator
- State: Kansas
- Previous job: Senior pastor, United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
- Called by AP: Nov. 3, 2026
Part of the Zark News Election 2026 winners profile series. Winners are listed as called by the Associated Press.
