Democratic U.S. senatorial candidate Adam Hamilton of Kansas, listens to administrators at the Health Partnership Clinic as they discuss funding issues the low-income family medical facility is facing on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, in Olathe. Kan. (AP Photo\/Colin E. Braley, File)<\/small><\/p>\n
2026-09-02T11:03:00Z<\/p>\n
EMPORIA, Kan. (AP) \u2014 Adam Hamilton has spent decades trying to bring people to Jesus as founder of the nation\u2019s largest United Methodist church. Now he wants to bring Kansas voters to the polls as the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n
A first-time candidate, Hamilton faces an unusual balancing act between political ambition and spiritual obligation. His pastoral role has given him rare prominence for a Democrat in a state where Republicans have won every Senate race for nearly a century, and some in his party are hoping for an upset victory<\/a><\/span> over incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall.<\/p>\n But conservatives are also trying to use Hamilton\u2019s religious leadership against him. They suggest that his sermons prove he\u2019s too liberal for Kansas or even that he\u2019s a heretic for suggesting that non-Christians have a path to salvation after death. <\/p>\n Marshall said in an interview that Hamilton is \u201ctoo woke for Kansas.\u201d<\/p>\n Hamilton isn\u2019t turning the other cheek. If Jesus were standing before them now, he said, \u201cRoger Marshall would call him \u2018woke.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Only a few ordained ministers have served as senators over the past 100 years and just one \u2014 current Democrat Raphael Warnock of Georgia \u2014 remained an active pastor. If elected, Hamilton plans to continue as senior pastor at his Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City area, preaching 12 to 18 times a year.<\/p>\n As Hamilton tries to win over center-right churchgoers as well as secular liberals, he\u2019s promising that he wouldn\u2019t use his perch in Washington to evangelize. He\u2019s on unpaid leave, going 11 weeks without giving a sermon this summer, although he peppers his remarks with biblical references, discusses Jesus\u2019 teachings with voters and spends several hours weekly on pastoral duties such as hospital visits.<\/p>\n \u201cI need that interaction with people and the caring for people,\u201d he said after a meet-and-greet at a coffee shop in Emporia, a university town of 24,000 that\u2019s smaller than his congregation 110 miles (180 kilometers) to the northwest.<\/p>\n Hamilton, 61, built his church from a few members meeting in a funeral home chapel in 1990 into a 25,000-member congregation with nine locations across the Kansas City area. He\u2019s demonstrated an ability to raise money and has gained national attention by writing more than 30 books, mostly on Christian theology.<\/p>\nHamilton brings skills that built a huge church to a tough race<\/h2>\n