Trump, who carried Kansas by more than ten points in each of his three presidential campaigns, made his first visit to the state since 2018 to rally for Marshall last week. Republicans had mounted a massive rescue effort for the incumbent, including two Trump rallies in October and a Vance event in September and again on Oct. 26, but could not save him.
Hamilton, a pastor who was registered as a Republican until recently and founded the 25,000-member Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City area, the nation's largest United Methodist congregation, won by appealing to moderate Republicans and independents frustrated with the rising cost of living and unhappy with Trump's handling of the economy and the war with Iran. The last Democrat to win a Kansas Senate race was George McGill in 1932, and the state had not seen a genuinely close contest since Bob Dole's 1974 victory by less than two percentage points. Kansas is often viewed as ruby red, but a sizable bloc of moderate voters has regularly swung governors' races to Democrats, and suburbs near Kansas City have become increasingly blue.
Total spending reached around $110 million. Ad-tracking firm AdImpact counted $65 million in Democratic spending on television and digital ads against $45 million from Republicans, with Democrats investing more than $27 million in the second half of October alone. Marshall's campaign, which faced only a nominal primary challenge, did not start its ads until late August and his fundraising lagged; Republicans shifted millions of dollars from North Carolina to Kansas.
Marshall, a retired obstetrician elected to the House in 2016 and the Senate in 2020, remained loyal to Trump throughout, defending the war and the president's tariffs and telling voters the economy was strong. He echoed Trump in blaming high fuel prices on Ukrainian attacks on Russian infrastructure. Vance, campaigning in Topeka, called Hamilton "Chuck Schumer's stooge," while Republicans spent the final weeks arguing that voting for the Democratic nominee would put liberal Democrats in charge of the Senate.
Hamilton kept his distance from national party leaders, describing himself as "independent-minded" and promising not to support keeping Schumer as Democratic leader. "I'm not running against President Trump," he said at the candidates' final debate, aiming his attacks at Marshall and congressional Republicans instead. He called for ending Trump's tariffs and requiring congressional approval for any new ones, and criticized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a Topeka event while stopping short of calling to abolish the agency. "They were formed to make sure that people didn't fly airplanes into buildings again," he said. "If they stick to what they were created for, I'm grateful for them."
In the campaign's final weeks, Republicans painted Hamilton as too “woke” for Kansas, highlighting his church's support for LGBTQ rights and two cases of alleged sexual abuse of teenage boys by an adult leader at church camps in 2005 and 2006. Hamilton acknowledged it was a mistake for the church not to report the first incident to law enforcement and for him not to personally check that the man did not return the following year. Hamilton's campaign seized on a New York Times report that Marshall and his medical practice sued more than 700 patients over unpaid bills, with patients arrested for missing court dates in 81 of those cases. Marshall called the attacks a “gross mischaracterization” of his professional record.
In Neosho County, where 73% of voters backed Trump two years ago, Hamilton's signs appeared in the final weeks. “I think people are just desperate for a bit of normalcy,” said Travis Falstad, 53, a left-leaning voter in the county.