The pastor of the nation's largest Methodist church is running for the US Senate in Kansas [View all]

Source: AP

Updated 5:44 PM EDT, April 30, 2026


LENEXA, Kan. (AP) — The pastor of the largest United Methodist Church in the U.S. launched a campaign Thursday for the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Kansas, upending the race in a normally Republican state as the GOP’s small majority seems less secure than it was a year ago. The Rev. Adam Hamilton enters the race as a potentially formidable candidate, though it appears likely that at least a few of the eight other, lesser-known Democrats who previously launched campaigns would remain in the Aug. 4 primary.

The winner will face incumbent Republican Roger Marshall, who aligned himself closely with President Donald Trump in his first run for the Senate in 2020. Hamilton, 61, has a national following among mainline Protestants, and he’s built his Church of the Resurrection over the past 35 years in the Kansas City area with about 22,000 members — giving him a base from which to tap volunteers and donors.

Hamilton weighed an independent run first

He had considered running as an independent, telling his congregation that he could bridge partisan divides in a highly polarized political climate. However, many Democrats believed that would simply split the anti-Marshall vote, giving Marshall a second term. “Every week, it seemed there was another news story in the last year where I would find myself shaking my head and thinking, we have to do better,” the self-described fifth-generation Kansan said.

While Democrats and Republicans have traded off the Kansas governor’s office for the past 60 years, Republicans haven’t lost a U.S. Senate race in the state since 1932. Democrats gave Marshall a vigorous challenge in 2020, but he still prevailed by more than 11 percentage points, even as Democrat Joe Biden ousted Trump and his party won control of both houses of Congress.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/methodist-megachurch-pastor-kansas-senate-candidate-c703c399ddd3f16a0f0d9dab1cc08e05