Adam Hamilton Flips Kansas Senate Seat, First Democrat Elected From Kansas in 94 Years

Adam Hamilton will defeat Kansas Republican incumbent Senator Roger Marshall, Decision Desk HQ and CNN projected at 11:19 p.m. ET on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. The result snaps a 94 year Democratic Senate losing streak in Kansas, the longest in United States history.

Reuters reported the same result: Hamilton won the U.S. Senate race in Kansas on Tuesday, according to media projections, ousting the Trump backed Republican Roger Marshall to become the first Democrat elected senator from Kansas in 94 years. The Associated Press election results feed lists the Kansas Senate race as called for Hamilton.

The count in the AP snapshot

In the Associated Press snapshot carried in the results feed, Hamilton had 548,792 votes to Marshall at 480,745, with 89.35 percent of precincts reporting in that snapshot. The snapshot is not a final count, and counting continued after the call. The margin in that snapshot was wide enough for the projection services and the AP feed to list the race as called for Hamilton on Tuesday night.

The last Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Kansas was George McGill in 1932, according to Kansas reporting cited in election coverage. Hamilton's win ends that run in a state that voted heavily Republican at the top of the ticket two years ago.

A pastor runs for the Senate

Hamilton, 62, is senior pastor of the country's largest United Methodist congregation. He has written more than 30 books on Christianity and theology. He campaigned on affordability and bipartisanship and called himself an independent minded Democrat, according to Reuters.

President Donald Trump carried Kansas by more than 16 percentage points in 2024, and the race had initially been expected to be safely Republican. The contest tightened in its final weeks and drew Trump and Vice President JD Vance to Kansas to campaign for Marshall.

Marshall and the lawsuit report

Marshall, an obstetrician before entering politics, was elected to the U.S. House in 2016 and to the Senate in 2020. He faced criticism after a September New York Times report said he had sued more than 700 patients over unpaid bills, according to Reuters. Marshall, in a September interview with Fox News, described the New York Times report as a "hit job," Reuters reported.

The Kansas flip was one of the seats that put Democrats over the top for Senate control on Tuesday night. A separate projection later in the night gave Democrats the Senate, after calls in Ohio and Kansas and flips in other states.

Hamilton's win sends a Democrat to the Senate from Kansas for the first time since the McGill election in 1932, closing a streak that had lasted through generations of Kansas elections.