Sen. Roger Marshall talks with supporters today at the Lyon County fairgrounds with the “Keep Kansas Great Bus Tour," in Emporia, Kansas. October 6, 2020. Shutterstock
Kansas suddenly seems like it could very well flip away from Republicans in the midterms, and according to a new focus group of Trump voters from The Bulwark, it all comes down to how "deeply unpopular" the Trump-backed incumbent Republican is.
Sarah Longwell is the publisher of the anti-Trump conservative outlet, The Bulwark, and is also one of the most experienced political focus group testers in the business. On Tuesday, she released a new report about her findings after speaking with Kansas voters who broke for President Donald Trump in 2024, pressing them for their thoughts on GOP Sen. Roger Marshall and his Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton, a pastor who has surged in recent polls.
"Hamilton isn’t winning just because he’s a pastor, or because conservative Christians in Kansas see a kindred spirit in him. It’s more complicated than that," Longwell explained. "He’s winning because he’s shrewdly presented himself as a benign Democrat in a state that’s deeply Republican and at a time when Republicans are desperately trying to polarize the electorate. On top of that, Hamilton’s opponent is deeply unpopular, providing Hamilton with even more of a cushion to avoid the voters’ wrath. It’s a perfect storm."
She explained further that "Even compared to how we’ve heard similar voters discuss Republican incumbents this year, this group’s verdict on Marshall was harsh," and that any sense that they might break for Hamilton was less about how much they liked him and more about how much they "just aggressively disliked Marshall."
"I don’t have much respect for Roger Marshall just because I think he knows what to say and how to say it to the people that he’s talking to . . . and then he goes and does his own thing," Melanie, a 53-year-old respondent from Garnett, said. "He’s a doctor by medical trade and he is definitely supporting Big Pharma and he is not backing medical research. There’s a lot of things that I’ve struggled with him on. . . . With that, and how he’s supported Trump, I’m not a big fan of his at all—at all."
“All I hear now is about how he’s got the little cabin in Kansas . . . just to buy his residency, but he truly lives in Florida. . . . I don’t know if he’s being—if Marshall’s being truthful about his residency," Susan, a 68-year-old respondent from Baldwin City, added.
"I originally voted for [Marshall] because he’s pro-life. Other than that, I really don’t know a whole lot about him," Amanda, a 41-year-old respondent from St. Marys, told the focus group. "I don’t know that he’s made a big difference in a great positive way, ’cause, like, we still have really high property taxes, all kinds of taxes. They call us the high-tax point on the prairie. I have an aunt in Minnesota, and it’s like you would think liberal Minnesota would have higher taxes than us—they don’t."
Longwell made particular note that these opinions about Marshall were not exclusively based on his alignment with Trump. They did not just mention him being too loyal or too different from Trump, or being too MAGA or not MAGA enough; "they also had specific reasons for disliking Marshall."
"So, yes, Democrats are competitive because the Republican is a schmuck," Longwell concluded. "But Hamilton also has run a smart race that has allowed him to benefit from Marshall’s failings. His years of ministry as a megachurch leader, in particular, can be tied to his strong showing in the polls. Because it turns out that talking to big, diverse audiences about weighty and important issues is a transferable skill between the pulpit and politics."
