Kansas’s RED Senate seat Could really flip Dem for First time since 1932

Kansas Senate race tied as Democrats eye first win since 1932

With less than a month until Election Day, Kansas has emerged as an unexpected Senate battleground, with a new New York Times/Siena poll showing incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall tied with Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton. The state has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932.

CNN added Kansas to its list of the Senate seats most likely to flip for the first time this cycle, expanding the battleground map to 10 races. The shift follows private and public polling that has narrowed sharply in a state Donald Trump carried by a wide margin in 2024.

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CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten pointed to Trump’s standing in the state as a central factor. Republican presidents’ net approval in Kansas at a comparable point in their terms has typically been positive — George W. Bush near plus 45 after 9/11 and still slightly positive in 2006, Trump at about plus 5 in his first term. Enten said Trump is now roughly 15 points underwater in Kansas, a roughly 20-point drop from his first term and lower than any other Republican president this century at a similar stage. National trends, he added, put Trump in territory not seen for a Republican president since Herbert Hoover.

Kansas has also drifted left relative to the country. Averaging the last two presidential elections, 17 states are now more Republican than Kansas, up from only seven in the 2004–2008 period. Enten described that ranking as the least Republican relative position for Kansas versus the national average in more than a century, even though the state still leans Republican.

Candidate image is reinforcing the opening. Among Senate contenders tested by the Times, Hamilton posted the highest net favorability, at plus 12, while the average candidate was slightly underwater. A substantial share of voters still do not know him, which analysts said leaves room for his numbers to move. Hamilton, founding senior pastor of the Church of the Resurrection, a large United Methodist congregation in the Kansas City area, has campaigned as a centrist focused on cost of living, tariffs, and ending U.S. involvement in the Iran conflict. He has drawn endorsements from some former Republican officials.

Republicans are treating the race as real. The Senate Leadership Fund, the party’s leading Senate super PAC, has shifted millions of dollars into Kansas — figures cited in coverage range from more than $8 million in early reservations to roughly $14 million in broader spending — while reducing commitments elsewhere, including North Carolina. New ads cast Hamilton as aligned with national Democrats on immigration and past protests. Marshall, an obstetrician and former House member first elected in 2020, has pressed the administration for relief on high diesel prices that hit farm operations hard.

Issue polling cited on CNN shows majority strong disapproval among Kansas likely voters of Trump’s handling of gas prices, with cost of living, the Iran war, and tariffs also drawing elevated disapproval. In a major agricultural state facing drought and export disruptions, those pressures are giving Democrats a foothold they have lacked in Senate races for generations.

Forecasts still generally rate the contest as leaning Republican. Kansas elected Democrats to the governorship in recent cycles, but Senate results have remained firmly GOP even in difficult national environments for the party. Whether Hamilton can convert a tied poll and high personal favorability into the first Democratic Senate victory in 94 years will depend on whether the late Republican spending can redefine him before early voting closes the window.