‘Smack dab in the middle:’ Kansas candidates for U.S. Senate stake out ground for general election

The Rev. Adam Hamilton, pastor of the largest United Methodist Church in the country, announces his candidacy for U.S. Senate on April 30, 2026, in Prairie Village. The Democrat faces incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall. (Photo by Anna Kaminski/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — From Lebanon, Kansas, the geographic center of the contiguous United States, the Rev. Adam Hamilton began his general election campaign for U.S. Senate.

Before launching on Tuesday his debut general election ad, Hamilton visited Lebanon, a physical embodiment of a campaign that hinges on “meeting in the middle.”

“Here in Kansas, we’re right smack dab in the middle of the country,” Hamilton says in the ad, which is scheduled to appear on TV markets in Wichita and Topeka. “The West Coast about 1,600 miles that way. The East Coast 1,100 miles that way. I’m Adam Hamilton, and here in Kansas, we’re proud of being in the middle politically, too. That puts us about a million miles away from the extreme politics of Washington that are tearing us apart and driving up prices.”

Hamilton, a Democrat and United Methodist pastor, will compete against Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall in November, and until then, healthcare, the rising cost of living and the president are expected to be major issues on the campaign trail. While Hamilton is aiming for the middle, Marshall is firmly positioned on the right.

Hamilton’s ad is the first individual campaign ad of the race for the general election, but outside groups waded into the Kansas ad market following the Aug. 4 primary.

On Marshall’s behalf, political action committees the Main Street Fund and Main Street Defense Fund have aired ads touting his “pro-farmer” record and ties to Trump. Another classified Hamilton as a “woke megachurch pastor,” with clips from old sermons.

“They take little pieces of sermons — so I’ve got 30 years of sermons out there, 36 years — take little pieces of them, sew them together, and try to make me say things I didn’t say, which is by itself sad and tragic,” Hamilton said during a press call Monday.

Glynnis Harvey, a spokesperson for Hamilton’s campaign, said he will be a “different kind of leader” than Marshall.

“Kansas is smack dab in the middle of the country, and so are the voters here,”she said.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) criticized Hamilton’s theology on the social media platform X.

“Why do Democrats keep nominating ‘preachers’ who reject the central tenets of Christianity?” Cruz wrote. 

In response, Marshall thanked Cruz for “bringing this up.”

“This is only one of hundreds of examples. … Wait until you hear about the ‘hundreds of mistakes in the Bible’ my opponent claims to have found,” Marshall wrote.