By Leah Douglas
Nov 3 (Reuters) – Adam Hamilton won the US Senate race in Kansas on Tuesday, according to media projections, ousting Trump-backed Republican Roger Marshall to become the state’s first Democrat elected senator in 94 years and helping Democrats cement control of the chamber.
It was a striking Democratic gain in a state President Donald Trump carried by more than 16 percentage points in 2024 and where the race had initially been expected to be safely Republican.
Republicans held a 53-47 Senate majority going into Tuesday’s elections, with Democrats needing a net gain of four seats to take control.
Hamilton, pastor of the country’s largest United Methodist congregation, campaigned on affordability and bipartisanship, calling himself an “independent-minded Democrat” and rejecting Republican portrayals of him as far left.
Wearing a pin that said “love one another,” Hamilton spoke in his victory speech of the need for unity between Democrats and Republicans, and for curbing cost of living increases caused by Trump policies like tariffs and cuts to food assistance.
In electing him, “the people in Kansas, Republicans, Democrats and independents, were saying, what’s happening in Washington is not okay,” Hamilton said.
The race tightened in its final weeks, drawing Trump and Vice President JD Vance to Kansas to campaign for Marshall.
At a Wichita-area campaign rally on October 19, Trump said the US Department of Agriculture would launch a “harvest fuel relief program” to provide farmers with $8 billion to offset diesel costs during the harvest season.
Hamilton, 62, has written more than 30 books on Christianity and theology.
He and Marshall both sought to appeal to Kansas farmers hit by high diesel and fertilizer prices driven up in part by the war in Iran.
Marshall, an obstetrician before entering politics, was elected to the US House in 2016 and the Senate in 2020. He faced criticism after a New York Times report in September said he had sued more than 700 patients over unpaid bills. In a September interview with Fox News, he called the article a “hit job” and said he followed typical collections practices.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; Editing by Michael Learmonth, Howard Goller and Daniel Wallis)
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