President Donald Trump floated an upcoming rally to stump for Republican incumbent Senator Roger Marshall in Kansas as polling shows Democrat Adam Hamilton slightly ahead roughly three weeks from Election Day.
Marshall, a doctor, is currently in the seat that has been held by the GOP since 1919, the longest ever for any party. In his post on Truth Social discussing the potential rally, Trump called him one of his "favorite Senators."
Midterm elections are commonly viewed as a test of the political environment facing the party in power, and the president's party has historically lost seats during them. Republicans now hold a narrow majority in both the House and Senate.
Trump carried Kansas by double digits over then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, underscoring the state’s Republican tilt. But Democrats have maintained a foothold in the state, with Laura Kelly in the governor’s mansion even as Republicans hold both U.S. Senate seats.
When reached for comment about Trump's new post, Hamilton campaign spokesman Tyson Brody told Newsweek, "Washington is panicking over desperate, failing politician Roger Marshall. They’re sending in millions to try to distract from Marshall’s record of supporting the war in Iran, gutting healthcare, and raising prices on everything from gas to groceries. Marshall is turning to these desperate lies and false attacks because Kansans have learned Roger Marshall had pregnant mothers arrested and jailed over small medical debts, and voted to block the release of the Epstein files. Roger Marshall is desperate to hide from his record of protecting predators and preying on low-income families in Kansas.”
Newsweek reached out to Marshall's campaign via email on Monday for comment.
...
What To Know
In his new post, Trump praised Marshall, calling him a wonderful person, who has been given a "bum rap" for allegedly requesting money owed to him by his patients.
"If he didn’t make these requests, he would be breaking the Law, and subject to criminal liability and arrest," Trump added in his post.
Earlier this month, election forecaster The Cook Political Report moved the race from Lean Republican to a Toss Up, adding to the potentially troubling signs for Republicans surrounding the contest.
Cook said Hamilton is running an "increasingly strong race" while highlighting the attack ad against Marshall, an OB-GYN, over billing and collection practices at his office. Marshall had branded the ad targeting his practice a "lie."
Meanwhile, Marshall has called Hamilton a "radical Democrat," adding that "his sermons are identical to the Democratic Party platform."
Trump also threw jabs at Hamilton, saying that he loves high taxes, open borders and added that he wouldn't want the Democrat to be his pastor.
Hamilton is pastor of the largest United Methodist Church in the country, the Church of the Resurrection. He founded the Kansas City-area congregation in 1990 at age 25, according to his campaign website.
"He’s caused nothing but turmoil in his church, which has broken up, and is virtually at war with each other because of him. In his church, he has caused great anger and dissension, setting it back decades with discord and vitriol that will never be healed," Trump said in part in his post. He added that Hamilton is "not one of us" while touting his own support from evangelicals during the 2024 presidential election.
In his lengthy post, the president accused Hamilton of mishandling allegations involving a church camp counselor whom Trump called a child predator. Hamilton's campaign has previously rejected those attacks and also told the Kansas Reflector in July that "there was no attempt at a cover-up" regarding the investigation into the counselor following reports of abuse beginning in 2005, the outlet says.
“I can just say that our aim was to make sure that if we got anything wrong, we wanted to get it right,” Hamilton said to the outlet.
"ROGER LOVES KANSAS, AND WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN! I will be having a Kansas Style Rally, in Roger’s Honor, very soon. See you there!" Trump concluded in his post.
What New Polling Reveals
Recent polling shows Hamilton in the lead by a couple of points or a dead heat. Prediction market site Polymarket shows Marshall ahead with 63 percent versus Hamilton's 38 percent on Monday afternoon.
A YouGov poll showed Hamilton with 48 percent of the potential vote compared to Marshall's 45 percent. One percent said someone else, 5 percent said undecided and 1 percent said they would not vote. The poll surveyed 2,255 likely voters in Kansas from September 24 to October 4 and had a 3.2 percent margin of error.
A Trafalgar Group poll showed Hamilton had 44.4 percent of the potential vote compared to 43.5 percent for Marshall, 2 percent for Libertarian Party candidate David C Graham and 10.1 percent were undecided. The poll surveyed 1,095 likely voters across the state from September 29 to October 1 and had a margin of error of 2.9 percent.
In a poll by The New York Times and Siena University last month, Marshall had 47 percent of the potential vote compared to 46 percent for Hamilton, and 7 percent of respondents said they did not know. The poll surveyed 605 likely voters from September 22 to September 30 and had a margin of error of 4.6 points.
Marshall's 2020 Cookie Bill
Over the weekend, Marshall took to X to highlight that his campaign paid an invoice dating back to 2020 involving a cookie vendor.
"As some folks may have seen, there was a post on social media regarding an unpaid 2020 cookie bill. We have absolutely no idea how this happened, but rest assured as soon as it became known to us, we immediately attempted to contact the business in order to apologize, and we have repaid the bill from 2020, double," Marshall said.
The post included a screenshot of the paid invoice to "Holly's Sweet Treats, LLC FOR $1,300."
For more analysis from us on the numbers shaping U.S. politics and the 2026 midterms, sign up for Newsweek's Midterms Monitor newsletter.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Edward T. Cummins