Marshall concedes Kansas Senate race to Hamilton, saying 'I don't have any answers'

First-time evangelical canvassers and crossover Republicans describe backing Hamilton

The Marshall campaign had painted Hamilton as a radical liberal whose views contradicted Biblical teachings, but the strategy failed to curb the Democrat’s momentum. Sen. Roger Marshall quoted scripture and called his defeat “humbling” in his concession speech after the Kansas Senate race was called in Hamilton’s favour Tuesday night. “I don’t have any answers,” Marshall said. “I’ll just tell you it’s been the greatest honour of my life to serve the state of Kansas for ten years.”

When the call came, voters across Kansas — from lifelong Republicans in tiny unincorporated communities to dyed-in-the-wool liberals who had felt disenfranchised for decades — erupted in cheers and sighs of relief. The coalition behind the win spanned a powerful cross-section of the state, from Republicans voting blue for the first time to longtime liberals initially skeptical of Hamilton’s more moderate positions.

At a Democratic watch party in Wichita, a manufacturing city in the heart of the state, around 100 attendees cheered as television pundits on screen spoke of a “blue tsunami,” celebrating as Democrats swept not just Kansas seats but races across the nation. “I have lived in Kansas for 30-something years, and I have felt all of those years like I voted and my vote was never counted,” said Laura Elliott, 71, sitting at a high-top table with three others.

“We did it!” shouted Chuck Schmidt, 76, hugging a younger voter as he credited upcoming generations with the party’s success. “People are fed up with the chaos and the corruption,” Schmidt, a former Democratic state representative, told BBC News. “People in Kansas, for some reason, have gotten conditioned to just vote for the R - and they haven’t realised there was another alternative.”

Faith has long been a deciding factor for many Kansas voters. A 2025 report from the Pew Research Center ranked the state as the 10th most religious in the US, with 70% of Kansans identifying as Christian and nearly 30% as evangelical Protestants — a group that has overwhelmingly backed Trump and the Republican Party in recent years.

In Great Bend, Marshall’s hometown, Navy veteran Richard Elmore listed abortion, transgender issues, illegal immigration and “the gay rights issue” as some of the reasons he backed the Republican candidate. “Anybody that’d say they were a Christian and not honour those things are lying to themselves and others,” said Elmore, a 77-year-old grandfather who said he supported Marshall because his conservative views on policies aligned with his Christian beliefs. Elmore also said he believes an angel is protecting Trump — otherwise, “he’d be dead.”

Some Republicans took issue with Hamilton’s positions. Richard Friedeman, a lawyer and the Republican Party chair of Kansas’ Barton County, accused the pastor of being “very, very liberal - and he has the ability that liberal pastors have of telling you one thing and turning right around and telling somebody else the opposite.” Discussing the race from his Great Bend home on Election Day, Friedeman was cautiously optimistic, saying Marshall, a personal friend and “good Republican voter,” had “done a good job” during his time in office. But he conceded the Republican Party was embattled. “I think there’s going to be a reckoning for the way Trump has alienated so many people … I think it’s going to be hard for awhile,” he said.

Friedeman’s prediction was borne out as voters in Republican strongholds like Iowa, South Carolina and Texas turned out for Democratic candidates. Even in Mississippi, the heart of America’s Bible Belt, the race was neck and neck at the time of publication — a feat once thought nearly impossible for the Democratic Party. BBC News reported that most pundits and pollsters viewed the historic victories as rebukes of Trump’s second-term agenda, such as aggressive immigration policies, a war in Iran and global tariffs that have contributed to the rising cost of living.

The day before the election, on a rainy afternoon filled with squalls and hail, dozens of Hamilton supporters turned out for a last-minute canvas in the university town of Lawrence, Kansas. Among them were retired teacher Sharron Witters, 77, and her husband Lynn, 78, a former forestry professor and pastor of 25 years. As evangelical Christians, the couple said Hamilton’s candidacy motivated them to put out signs on their lawn and knock on doors for the first time. They set out with maps and lists as Sharron navigated their silver VW SUV from address to address in a well-heeled Lawrence neighborhood.

Hamilton, Sharron said, “doesn’t sound like a politician.” “What a delight to stand and listen to somebody whose sentences make sense,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he actually motivated people to work across the aisle?” She noted that other evangelical Christians had backed Trump “because he said, ‘I’m against abortion’.” But she and her husband said they felt from the very beginning that Trump was “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

In Great Bend, a town of 14,000 bordered by farmland and myriad anti-abortion billboards along country roads, lifelong Republican Dan Bonine, 85, cast his first vote for a Democrat. The retired banker had been one of Marshall’s earliest supporters when the physician began his political career, but said he was swayed by Hamilton’s presence and positions. “Ronald Reagan was really a great leader to bring us together, and I think Adam Hamilton possesses much of that same kind of leadership skill,” Bonine told BBC News, adding that “in my lifetime we’ve only had three or four” politicians of such calibre. “He’s just an awesome, awesome leader, and his values are rock solid.”

Voters told BBC News they were inspired not just by frustration with Trump and his policies but also by Hamilton’s charisma and positions — particularly in contrast with Marshall’s performance over the last six years. Critics argued the Republican senator prioritized Trump loyalty over Kansas’ needs, with much attention paid to Marshall’s residence in Florida, where many voters felt he spent more of his time and attention than in his home state. Marshall’s strong support for Trump may have cost him with locals who felt he had lost touch with regular Kansans, according to BBC reporting.

Registered Republican Bryan Drescher, 40, grew up in Great Bend, where Marshall coached him in baseball. Drescher voted for the senator six years ago but noted that Marshall had a reputation for being “brash” and “quick to judge” — citing, for example, a 2025 town hall the senator abruptly ended when challenged. “I want someone … who’s going to bring us back to the middle and back to the table,” Drescher said. Hamilton, he felt, fit that description.

Hamilton, 62, is the founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, the largest United Methodist congregation in the US, with 24,000 congregants. He claimed victory Tuesday night over Marshall, the incumbent Republican and staunch Trump supporter, becoming the first Democrat to win the Kansas Senate seat since 1932. He had promised voters civility, moderate policy stances and an open ear to their concerns, and told voters his faith inspires his belief that the government should help care for the poor and vulnerable. Invoking the state’s most famous cultural touchstone on the campaign trail, he told Kansans: “What we need in Washington right now is we need senators with a brain who use it, with a heart who feel with it, and who have courage and speak up because of it.”

Kansas woke Wednesday to sunny skies and historic new leadership after days of rain, hail and tornado warnings, amid a tempestuous election battle that swept a new brand of blue politics into the deep-red state. The air at the Wichita watch party was thick with celebration and relief as attendees left before midnight on Tuesday, heading home to digest Hamilton’s win and what it meant for Kansas’ future. Just a few miles away are expansive facilities for Boeing, Bombardier and other aviation giants — it is not unusual to see enormous plane parts in parking lots or passing on trucks or freight trains in this part of the state.

Retired teacher Judith Ney, 74, sat at the party with her fellow education retiree, Sheryl Loveland. The pair said they were initially nervous wrecks, hoping desperately that Hamilton and other Democrats would prevail. Now, Loveland said, they were “so stinking happy.” “I’ve been waiting for decades for this kind of a night,” Schmidt said, beaming under his University of Kansas baseball cap. “And we’re finally getting, I think, what we’ve been trying to get to.”