Adam Hamilton has built his U.S. Senate campaign around two blunt declarations: “This is not OK” and “This is not who we are.” The 62 year old pastor says he repeated those phrases so often at home that his wife urged him to stop talking and do something.

Now Hamilton is using them to frame a campaign against Republican Sen. Roger Marshall in explicitly moral terms. He points to Republicans stripping health insurance from 63,000 Kansans, cuts to food assistance, costly tariffs, high gasoline prices and what he calls “the corruption, the chaos, the cruelty that’s happening out in Washington.”

Recent ICE raids in western Kansas brought some of his sharpest criticism during a debate with Marshall. “There was a preschool teacher arrested in front of her children, that’s just not OK. We’ve militarized and politicized ICE … This is really harming people in the livestock and the dairy industry, and it doesn’t reflect who we are as Americans.”

Hamilton is campaigning as a moderate who promises to work with both parties and lead from the middle. Yet his moderation is rooted less in discomfort with political conflict than in disgust with cruelty, bullying and public officials who remain silent.

A pastor for 36 years at the nation’s largest United Methodist Church, Hamilton has emphasized social programs, children, families and education. “I have a deep passion for the things that Democrats care about, and that is social safety nets, caring about children, caring about families, caring about education,” he told reporters in Olathe.

The approach appears to have turned a supposedly safe Republican seat into a toss up. Donald Trump and JD Vance both visited Kansas within one week, while Republicans poured money into the race and voters described a hunger for someone willing to confront the chaos.

Kansas is not as politically predictable as its reputation suggests. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly won two terms, voters decisively protected abortion rights after Roe v. Wade was overturned, and they rejected a Republican effort to make the state supreme court an elected body.

Hamilton also fits the changing politics of Johnson County, where he was born, raised and built his church. He remained a registered Republican as recently as 2020 and frequently praises past cooperation involving Bob Dole, George McGovern, Nancy Kassebaum, Ted Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill.

Former Republican governors Bill Graves and Mike Hayden have endorsed him, along with a former Republican state House majority leader. Hamilton says Republicans account for 30% of his rally audiences, and several voters described his integrity and promise of sensible leadership as decisive attractions.

Marshall, meanwhile, has struggled to project independence or connection to Kansas. Critics cited his support for Trump, his departure from a contentious town hall in Oakley, tightly controlled events and persistent evidence that he lived in Florida rather than Great Bend.

The ground campaign offered another warning sign for Republicans. Hamilton signs and billboards appeared throughout the state, including conservative rural areas, while Marshall signs were scarce and Democratic canvassers reported an unusually energetic operation.

Yet Hamilton’s moral politics showed limits when he was asked about Marshall’s 30 year business relationship with private equity tycoon Dan Tasset. Hamilton declined to answer whether private equity should be barred from owning hospitals and clinics, instead returning to Marshall’s lawsuits against former patients and the loss of insurance for 63,000 Kansans.

Hamilton said he wants to restore insurance subsidies and then work with both parties and industry leaders on a lasting health care solution. “It’s not something you’re going to do in two weeks. And as a pastor, that’s not my area of expertise,” he said.

That caution contrasts with Democrat Don Coover, a former military intelligence officer, rancher and livestock veterinarian running in Kansas’s Second Congressional District. Coover openly attacks corporate concentration, naming Tyson, Cargill, JBS and National Beef as meatpacking companies that control more than 80% of beef processing.

Hamilton’s website supports bans on algorithmic price fixing, junk fees, Wall Street purchases of homes and private insurer overbilling through Medicare Advantage. It also calls for Congress to investigate private equity consolidation in essential sectors, including health care, but his reluctance to confront that power publicly remains a glaring gap.

Still, Hamilton’s ability to connect moral language with political urgency has electrified supporters. Invoking The Wizard of Oz, he argues senators need a brain, a heart and courage, ending with the demand for lawmakers willing to say, “Hell no, this is not OK.”

Hamilton also says he rejects corporate PAC and AIPAC money. After raising more than $10 million in one quarter, including 10,000 individual donations from Kansans, he said he wants to determine how to remove money from politics rather than let it dictate politics.