Kansas poll and GOP insiders agree: Roger Marshall is in a heap of trouble. Maybe hiding will help.
U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall grins at the debate audience on Sept. 12, 2026, at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson. (Photo by Anna Kaminski/Kansas Reflector
Roger Marshall is in trouble.
An accumulating pile of evidence proves the U.S. senator from Kansas needs help in his reelection bid. I’ve already mocked the Republican’s lackluster debate performance on Sept. 12 in Hutchinson.
Then we watched Vice President JD Vance parachute into Johnson County for a campaign event. Then U.S. Sen. Joe Kennedy, R-Louisiana, told reporters that senators in Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa required assistance: “The races are close.” Finally, an Emerson College poll released Friday showed Democrat Adam Hamilton with a narrow lead in the race. Hamilton led Marshall 45-43% with Libertarian David Graham drawing 4%.
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“In this race, we have got Dr. Roger Marshall, a proud servant of this state, and a proud Christian to boot, versus a guy who would insult your faith and spit on your religion to accrue donations to himself,” Vance informed the crowd.
You, uh, don’t use language like that if your guy has a healthy lead in the polls.
Everyday folks are paying attention, too. My columns about Marshall invariably attract wide readership. For years, I left the heavy lifting on the Marshall beat to my friend Joel Mathis, who wrote columns about the senator for Kansas’ McClatchy newspapers. As you might have heard, McClatchy has been going through it recently, and Mathis stopped writing for those outlets several months ago.
(He’s greatly missed! You can keep up with Joel’s recent writing here.)
I hear many of the ingredients of the James Talarico-Ken Paxton fight in Texas echoed here in Kansas. Both Democratic challengers come from deep faith traditions, albeit ones lampooned by rightwing holy rollers. Both Republican candidates show shaky stump skills and have attracted plenty of negative attention in their home states.
I don’t know if Hamilton can win. But if the stories keep piling up the way they did last week — and the week before — even the most grizzled political observer may be forced to wonder.
Archie Blumhorst, the father of Cindy Holscher, holds signs supporting the candidate on Sept. 12, 2026, at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Holscher questions
That Emerson poll suggests a situation that I find difficult to contemplate: A Democrat winning the U.S. Senate seat and a Republican winning the governorship. Results put Republican Ty Masterson an eye-watering seven percentage points ahead of Democrat Cindy Holscher in the race for control of the state executive branch.
No wonder he wants to drop future debates against the Johnson County Democrat.
There is long-standing precedent for Kansans electing Democratic governors. Remember Kathleen Sebelius, Joan Finney and John Carlin? There is no precedent within living memory for Kansans electing Democratic U.S. senators. So either we are going to see a totally atypical election this November or we’re going to see those races tighten up and revert to the mean.
On the other hand, national Democratic organizations might not have invested sufficiently in Holscher’s campaign.
I was watching a movie on a free streaming service a couple of weeks ago — it was Tubi, if you must know — and every commercial break featured an ad slamming Holscher for supposedly preferring California to Kansas. (Please read Wichita Eagle opinion editor Dion Lefler on the subject.)
I did not see a single ad slamming Masterson. The former Senate president may be a better candidate than Marshall, but he certainly has enough skeletons in his closet to power a blitz of negative ads. National funders will see a winnable Kansas race slip through their fingers if they don’t cut some checks for Holscher right away.
Sen. Ty Masterson jauntily points at his rival during the Kansas State Fair debate in Sept. 12, 2026 (Photo by Morgan Chilson/Kansas Reflector)
Debate maneuvering
On the subject of debates: The two people who have the most to lose from further forums with their rivals are Masterson and Marshall. The former has enough money and supporters to fill the airwaves with anti-Holscher ads. He doesn’t need to risk in-person confrontations now that he’s stood up to the meanies at the Kansas State Fair.
“Ty has debated Cindy Holscher and appeared alongside her in multiple forums,” Masterson spokesman Garrett Henson said, words fairly dripping with bravery. “At this time, we do not have plans to accept any further debates.”
Marshall’s performance at the same debate was embarrassing and viral enough that his campaign will want him rested and rehearsed before any follow-up (they were apparently locked in negotiations with the Hamilton campaign when last we checked). They could also just trying locking him behind closed doors and away from the public.
Those imaginary paid agitators will try to track him down everywhere!
Kansas Democrats’ fate
Sunflower State Democrats find themselves at a fascinating juncture here in mid September.
They don’t have much to lose, and there’s an awful lot to gain by pressing whatever advantage they can find. With Laura Kelly term limited out of the governor’s office, the one fixed point in Kansas Democratic politics will vanish with the new year. New potential power centers have emerged — Hamilton and his surprisingly adroit Senate race for Senate — along with another opportunity to break the Republican legislative supermajority.
Democrats are aiming high, with the Hamilton and Holscher campaigns still sounding incredibly optimistic. But in this year, with President Donald Trump free-falling to historic depths of unpopularity, they would be foolish not to try.
That blue-tinted optimism has spread to other Midwestern states. Friend o’ the Reflector Kyle Paoletta takes a wide view in his latest piece for Harper’s Magazine: “Barn Burners: Can the Democrats harness the new prairie populism?” My definitive answer? Maybe!
The Rev. Adam Hamilton, a Democrat, and Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall appear on the debate stage on Sept. 12, 2026, at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson. (Photo by Anna Kaminski/Kansas Reflector
Off to the races
We’re just getting started. If the U.S. Senate race in Kansas keeps looking competitive, and if Democratic money gushes in for Holscher, Kansans could see a fall campaign the likes of which they have not experienced for generations. As a supposed red state, we usually only witness Republican-on-Republican violence.
National Republican money for Marshall and Democratic money for Holscher would fill airwaves and website with ads, send platoons of door-knockers into neighborhoods across 105 counties, and support a healthy turnout on Election Day.
As a democracy enthusiast, I can’t wait.
Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. His first book, “Opinionated: Kansas Journalists Who Proved Why Commentary Matters — Then and Now,” comes out Sept. 29 from the University Press of Kansas. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.