Kansas sends Democrat to US Senate for first time since 1932

Democrat Adam Hamilton won a US Senate seat in Kansas on Tuesday, according to US media projections, unseating Republican incumbent Roger Marshall and becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate race in the largely rural, conservative state since 1932.

The result is a blow to President Donald Trump, who carried Kansas by more than 10 points in each of his three presidential campaigns and traveled there last week, his first visit to the state since 2018, to rally support for Marshall.

Hamilton, the pastor of a Methodist megachurch who was registered as a Republican until recently, had considered running as an independent before entering the race as a Democrat.

He campaigned as a moderate, kept his distance from national party leaders and pledged not to back Chuck Schumer as Senate majority leader. He also criticized how former president Joe Biden's administration handled immigration.

Hamilton largely aimed his attacks at Marshall and congressional Republicans rather than the president.

"I'm not running against President Trump," he said at their final debate.

Marshall, by contrast, told voters that supporting him meant supporting the president's agenda.

The two men also clashed over tariffs. Hamilton called for ending Trump's tariffs and requiring congressional approval for any new ones, while Marshall insisted they were working.

Many Kansas farmers, already squeezed by fuel costs driven up by the Iran war, have been hit by retaliatory tariffs on exports such as soybeans and wheat. Cattle ranchers were angered by a Trump plan to ease tariffs on beef imports.

In rural Neosho County, where 73 percent of voters backed Trump two years ago, Hamilton's yard signs appeared in the final weeks of the campaign.

"I think people are just desperate for a bit of normalcy," Travis Falstad, 53, a left-leaning voter in the county, told AFP before the vote.