TOPEKA, Kan. — Vice President JD Vance returned to Kansas on Monday for the second time in six weeks, rallying voters at a steel fabrication business in Topeka for Republican Sen. Roger Marshall in a Senate race that has stunned Washington by turning one of the reddest states in America into a dead heat. With one week to go before the November 3 midterms, polls show Marshall essentially tied with Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton, a Methodist pastor, and the full weight of the Republican establishment is now being thrown behind a senator who won his first term by 11 points.
The Kansas Senate race has become the clearest symbol of a midterm map that is refusing to behave. President Donald Trump carried Kansas three times, including by 16 percentage points in 2024, yet his vice president has now visited the state twice since mid-September, Trump himself campaigned near Wichita last week, and Trump is scheduled to return to Kansas again on Saturday in Salina. If Hamilton wins, he would be the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Kansas since the 1930s.
Vance's visit to Topeka on Monday came days after Trump headlined an arena rally in Park City, near Wichita, and six weeks after the vice president's first Kansas stop in Olathe. Speaking at a steel fabrication business, Vance framed the election as far bigger than a contest between two candidates.
"Next week's election, ladies and gentlemen, it's not just red team versus blue team," Vance said. "It's about whether we stand for a fighter who's always stood for the normal, everyday Americans who keep this country running."
The vice president urged Kansas voters to reject Hamilton, the founder of the Church of the Resurrection, the largest United Methodist congregation in the United States. Vance claimed the Democrat's candidacy had been shaped by Washington political operatives tied to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
"Adam Hamilton says he's a pastor and, I don't know, I can't possibly know what is in the man's heart, but I do know the lawgiver in Adam Hamilton's world. It isn't Moses. It's not Jesus. It's Chuck Schumer," Vance said. "Here's the deal. If elected, Adam Hamilton would use our faith and your vote as Kansas senator to launder a political ideology that despises the way that Kansas lives. This man is a lab creation of Washington operatives and far-left activists who don't know a thing about you or what you care about."
Vance also took aim at diversity, equity and inclusion policies, saying the Trump administration had taken on "the tyranny of DEI and racial discrimination." He said "we happen to believe that no individual and no person can be truly free when their government or their employer cares more about so-called 'white privilege' than it does about promoting the American dream for everybody."
The speech was interrupted twice by vocal protesters who were escorted out. "The thing I've realized after having these rallies for the last couple of weeks is the only chance the Democrats have is to interrupt and shut down the debate, because when we have a free and open debate, the American people will realize that all the Democrats are selling is a fat load of bulls***," Vance said. Moments later he celebrated the exit of another protester, saying "the 'bulls*** artist, excuse my language for the kids. He's out of here."
Marshall, warming up the crowd, leaned into the economic message Vance has carried across the country. "Because of Roger Marshall, we cut taxes on overtime. Because of Roger Marshall, we cut taxes on tips. And because of Roger Marshall, we cut taxes on Social Security," Vance said, crediting the senator with the tax measures. Marshall himself warned supporters against complacency.
"Democrats are coming out like it's a presidential year. Republicans, we've got to match that excitement, that enthusiasm," Marshall told the Topeka crowd. "Send me back for one more term — for six more years. We sure can't send back a woke radical liberal Democrat. That's for sure."
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Sen. Derek Schmidt also attended the Topeka rally, a sign of how seriously national Republicans are now taking a race they once considered safe.
Kansas has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since George McGill, who won reelection in 1932 and left office in 1939. That history is why the closeness of this race has rattled Republican strategists. Trump won Kansas by 16 points in 2024, and in 2020, with Trump on the ballot, Marshall won his first Senate campaign by 11 points. Marshall, a physician who practiced medicine for more than 20 years in Great Bend, has spent the campaign doubling down on his loyalty to Trump and Vance.
But Marshall's campaign has been hobbled by several problems. His approval rating has slid, voter anxiety about the economy, fuel costs, tariffs and the war with Iran has grown, and reports that his attempt to collect unpaid medical debt led his attorney to file 700 lawsuits that resulted in the arrests of 80 people have dogged him for weeks. He has also faced a barrage of campaign commercials over his 2025 vote to table a bipartisan measure compelling the Justice Department to release files related to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Marshall said at the time it was improper to link the Epstein matter to a defense bill.
Hamilton, meanwhile, has presented himself as a centrist focused on the cost of living, fuel and health care, tariffs and the Iran war, aiming to draw votes from moderate Republicans and swing-vote independents. He is the founder of the 24,000-member Church of the Resurrection, a congregation he describes as roughly equal parts Republicans, Democrats and independents.
"Folks in Kansas have been getting hurt by policies out of Washington for too long," Hamilton said. His campaign has also had to answer questions about his handling of misconduct by a church volunteer who abused children at a Kansas summer camp. Hamilton said church staff conducted an inconclusive internal inquiry before turning information over to police a year later, and during the campaign he said he should have contacted authorities immediately.
Vance drew on Hamilton's archive of sermons during the Topeka speech, claiming the pastor said Kansans ought to apologize for consuming meat, and criticizing his congregation's support for a community LGBTQ pride festival. Hamilton's campaign has dismissed the attacks as distortions of a pastor's decades of preaching.
The polling picture explains the parade of Republican heavyweights through Kansas. MS NOW's polling data partner FiftyPlusOne put the race at Hamilton 45.9%, Marshall 45.7% — a statistical tie. YouGov had Hamilton ahead 48-45, Emerson had him up 45-43, and Times/Siena showed a 45-45 tie. A Red Box Research poll had Marshall ahead 46-45, and an InsiderAdvantage survey from October 13-14 put Marshall up 48-47. Earlier polls told a similar story: InsiderAdvantage had Hamilton up 48-47 in early October, and RealClearPolling's average showed the two tied at 45.8% each.
The race has been rated a toss-up by multiple polling platforms. National Republicans privately urged Marshall to take the race more seriously, according to Politico, and in recent weeks he has received reinforcements including a major push from the Senate Leadership Fund, the top Republican super PAC, which planned to spend $14 million on the race, and a veteran Republican operative joining his campaign.
Prediction markets are more confident in Marshall than the polls: he was trading at 61 cents on both Polymarket and Kalshi, against 40 to 41 cents for Hamilton. A Republican strategist told Politico the party is betting that the remaining undecided voters are Trump voters who will come home in the final week. Advance voting in Kansas, however, has been more robust among Democrats, a pattern Marshall himself flagged in Topeka.
The annual Kansas Speaks survey, released Monday by the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University, underlines the headwinds. Trump's approval in Kansas fell from 43% last year to 33% this year, Marshall's fell from 34% to 26%, and Kelly held steady at 47%. Marshall's campaign has been hobbled by that slide in the president's standing, as well as by voter anxiety about the economy.
Hamilton's campaign said the repeated high-profile Republican visits prove how worried Washington is about Marshall's chances.
"Sending the Vice President twice in six weeks to campaign for a senator tells you everything you need to know about how Roger Marshall's campaign is going," Hamilton spokesperson Glynnis Harvey said in a statement. "After last night's debate, they know that Adam Hamilton's message of leading from the middle is resonating with voters. Kansans are ready for change."
Before Vance arrived in Kansas, Hamilton issued a statement saying he appreciated how politicians in Washington were taking an interest in the welfare of Kansans. His campaign also invited the vice president to attend a service at Church of the Resurrection to get a better sense of the economic challenges faced by Kansans.
"Our congregation is roughly equal parts Republicans, Democrats and independents," Hamilton said. "We sit in the same pews and worship together every Sunday. Then we go out and serve our community. I believe Washington could learn something from us."
Marshall, for his part, has embraced the national attention. "We're pulling out all the stops," he told KCMO Talk Radio's Pete Mundo. "We're assuming that this is as close as these polls say they are." Trump, campaigning near Wichita last week, told Kansans to treat the race as a referendum on his own presidency: "Pretend, please, that I'm on the ballot."
The Kansas race matters far beyond the state's borders because of what it says about the Senate map. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 Senate majority, counting two independents who caucus with Democrats, and Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control. A Hamilton victory in Kansas would flip a Republican-held seat in a state no Democrat has won at the Senate level in nearly 90 years, moving Democrats significantly closer to a majority and forcing Republicans to defend territory they never expected to contest.
It also matters as a test of Trump's pull in red America. The president has now visited Kansas twice in this campaign cycle, and his vice president twice more, an extraordinary investment in a state Trump won by 16 points two years ago. If that firepower cannot lift Marshall clear of Hamilton, it will raise sharp questions about the party's standing in other states where Republicans are spending heavily to defend seats, including Texas, Iowa and Ohio. For related coverage, see our reports on the tightening Minnesota Senate race, Trump's Texas rallies for Ken Paxton, and Trump's $5,000 dividend promise.
For Kansas itself, the race is a referendum on two very different styles of politics: Marshall's record as a Trump loyalist and culture warrior, and Hamilton's pitch of a pastor who leads from the middle and talks about kitchen-table costs. The result will shape not only the Senate but the state's own political identity for years.
The final week will be intense. Trump returns to Kansas on Saturday, October 31, for a rally in Salina, his third Kansas appearance of the campaign. Both campaigns are expected to flood television and streaming services with attack ads in the closing days, and the candidates will make final swings through the state's population centers, from Wichita and Overland Park to Topeka and Kansas City.
Early voting continues through the final days before Election Day on Tuesday, November 3, when all 435 U.S. House seats and 35 Senate seats will also be decided. Results in Kansas will be watched nationally as one of the earliest indicators of whether the midterm map is breaking toward Democrats more sharply than expected, or whether the Republican establishment's late rescue mission for Marshall succeeded. If the race is as close as the polls suggest, the outcome may not be known on election night.
Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, a former physician seeking a second term, faces Democrat Adam Hamilton, founder of the Church of the Resurrection, the largest United Methodist congregation in the United States.
Polls show a statistical tie, driven by falling approval for Trump and Marshall in Kansas, voter anxiety about the economy, fuel costs, tariffs and the Iran war, and Hamilton's centrist pitch to moderate Republicans and independents.
FiftyPlusOne put Hamilton at 45.9% and Marshall at 45.7%. YouGov had Hamilton up 48-45, Emerson 45-43, Times/Siena a 45-45 tie, Red Box had Marshall up 46-45, and InsiderAdvantage had Marshall up 48-47.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Trump will campaign for Marshall in Salina on Saturday, October 31, and early voting runs through the final days before the election.
Yes, but not since the 1930s. George McGill won reelection in 1932 and served until 1939. A Hamilton win would be the first Democratic Senate victory in Kansas in nearly 90 years.
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