Adam Hamilton, a first-time candidate and senior pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City area, has secured the Democratic nomination for Kansas’s U.S. Senate seat. The 61-year-old built his congregation from a small group in 1990 into a 25,000-member institution across nine locations and has authored more than 30 books on Christian theology. He faces an incumbent Republican senator in a state where Democrats have not won a statewide Senate race since 1932.
Hamilton’s campaign centers on bringing people together and describes himself as a centrist. His congregation is nearly evenly split among Democrats, Republicans, and independents. If elected, he plans to continue serving as senior pastor, preaching 12 to 18 times annually while maintaining pastoral duties such as hospital visits. He has pledged not to use his Senate position to evangelize and says he would fight for the rights of all people regardless of faith.
Conservatives have mounted multiple lines of attack against Hamilton. Incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall characterizes him as too liberal for Kansas, while some religious critics, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, have labeled Hamilton a heretic based on a 2022 sermon in which he suggested non-Christians could receive salvation after death. Hamilton has noted that prominent Christian figures, including Methodist founder John Wesley and author C.S. Lewis, have held similar theological positions.
Republican political action committees have also launched advertisements claiming Hamilton is extreme on climate change and that his church supported a drag queen story hour—allegations his campaign denies. Marshall, a fifth-generation farmer and obstetrician, has focused his campaign on rural conservatives and agriculture policy, suggesting Hamilton, a suburbanite, lacks understanding of farming. Some Democrats have expressed skepticism about mixing government and religion, though at least one voter interviewed indicated Hamilton had won him over despite initial concerns about his ministerial background.
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