On February 27, Adam Hamilton—founding pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, the largest United Methodist congregation in the country—announced he had formed an exploratory committee to consider a run for U.S. Senate as an independent candidate. He would challenge Republican incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), who was first elected in 2020 and has announced he intends to seek a second term.

Hamilton isn't filing yet. He plans to spend Lent traveling Kansas—listening, discerning, praying—before announcing a final decision around mid-April, shortly after Easter on April 5. "If we decide to move forward," he said in his announcement statement, "it will be because we've heard a clear call from the people of Kansas we hope to serve."

This is not a typical political rollout. It is, for better or worse, deeply consistent with who Adam Hamilton is.

Hamilton, 61, founded Church of the Resurrection in 1990 in a funeral home chapel, with a handful of families, in Leawood. It now has more than 22,000 active members across nine campuses in the Kansas City metro area, making it by far the largest United Methodist Church in the denomination. Hamilton is a prolific author (more than 50 books on Christianity and theology), a nationally recognized preacher, and one of the most influential mainline Protestant voices in American public life.

He is also, as his own denomination's recent history makes plain, a polarizing figure. Hamilton spent years advocating for a "third way" on LGBTQ inclusion within the UMC…a position that satisfied neither traditionalists nor progressivists, and that contributed to a 2022–23 disaffiliation process in which an estimated 7,600 conservative congregations departed. His congregation stayed in the UMC fold. His theology is broadly inclusive; his politics have been harder to pin down.

That ambiguity is, in some ways, the entire point of his candidacy.

In January, during a sermon series on living fearlessly, Hamilton polled his congregation about their top concerns. More than 3,500 people responded. Seventy-one percent named polarization and lack of empathy as their primary worry. Sixty-five percent expressed concern about the country's direction. Hamilton says those numbers (combined with what his wife LaVon called a change of heart after years of saying no to politics) pushed him toward the exploratory committee.

"I am a fifth generation Kansan," he said in his launch statement. "I love this state and its people."

Kansas has not elected a Democrat or independent to the U.S. Senate since 1932. That sentence should hang over every piece of analysis written about this race.

Marshall won the state's open Senate seat in 2020 by 11.4 points over Barbara Bollier—a result that surprised some forecasters who expected a closer race given Bollier's moderate profile and record fundraising ($24.4 million raised). Bollier's final vote share: 41.8%. The most directly relevant precedent for Hamilton's potential run is Greg Orman in 2014. Orman, a Johnson County businessman, ran as an independent against incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts; despite a well-financed campaign and favorable national environment, he fell short by 11 points and won only three counties. Orman's final vote share: 42.5%.

Two different challengers, two different cycles, two different party configurations. Both finished at roughly 42% of the vote. Kansas has not produced a competitive non-Republican Senate candidate since 1974, and no one has broken through what the data increasingly suggests is a structural ceiling somewhere in the low-to-mid 40s.

Hamilton's path to the ballot is also procedurally demanding. He would have until noon on August 3 to make his candidacy official, and would need to file by petition (gathering at least 5,000 signatures from registered Kansas voters).

Any serious analysis of this race has to grapple with 2022, when two Kansas elections revealed dynamics that partisan federal races had never surfaced before.

First, the Value Them Both Amendment. In August 2022, Kansas voters rejected this abortion-related constitutional amendment 59–41. This was not a partisan vote: it required massive Republican crossover. In Johnson County, it lost 69–31. In Butler County, where roughly 68% of registered voters are Republicans, it split nearly even. The amendment exposed a reservoir of crossover potential that standard partisan contests had been obscuring for decades.

Three months later, Gov. Laura Kelly won re-election with 49.5%, carrying Johnson, Sedgwick, and Shawnee counties. Her winning coalition looked remarkably similar to the anti-amendment coalition. This proved Kansas voters will cross party lines for statewide office — though Kelly had advantages (incumbency, an established GOTV operation, a well-known name) that a first-time challenger would lack.

Whether 2022 represents a new structural reality in Kansas or a temporary confluence of favorable conditions is the central analytical question of the 2026 Senate race.

Capitol Bee has built SimKansas: an interactive, county-level scenario exploration tool for the 2026 Kansas Senate race. It is not a prediction. It is a model that lets you adjust the conditions of the race and watch how projected outcomes shift across all 105 Kansas counties. Before drawing conclusions, it's worth being precise about what it actually shows.

The default projection is sobering. At baseline parameters (modest Democratic field consolidation, a slightly favorable national environment, competitive fundraising, baseline unaffiliated turnout) SimKansas projects Marshall winning with roughly 49% of the vote to Hamilton's 31%, with a Democrat drawing about 18% and a Libertarian taking 2%. That's approximately an 18-point Marshall lead. The default is not a worst-case scenario for Hamilton; it is a reasonable-conditions scenario. And under reasonable conditions, the structural hole is deep.

The model has four levers. Each corresponds to a real-world variable Hamilton would need to influence to change the outcome:

Field Consolidation: whether Democratic voters consolidate behind Hamilton or split their support among Hamilton, a Democratic nominee, and other candidates. At low consolidation, the anti-Marshall vote fragments. At high consolidation (above 80) Hamilton captures the vast majority of Democratic-leaning votes, replicating the dynamic that made Kelly's 2022 coalition work.

National Environment: the broad political climate heading into November. A strong D-wave environment shifts partisan lean across every county and boosts suburban turnout. Kansas has approximately 44% Republican registration versus 26% Democratic—a nearly 2-to-1 Republican advantage—which means Hamilton needs a genuine tailwind, not just a neutral environment.

Challenger Fundraising: money matters more in outstate Kansas than in the KC metro, where Hamilton's name recognition is already high from his decades at Resurrection. In rural areas, fundraising is the primary driver of name recognition. The model uses a realistic range anchored to prior Kansas Senate fundraising history.

Unaffiliated Mobilization: Kansas has roughly 583,000 unaffiliated registered voters, about 29.5% of all registrations. Many skip midterms. An independent candidate has a structural argument that no partisan nominee can make to this bloc. The model tests what happens if Hamilton activates even a fraction of them.

Breaking through requires convergence. SimKansas finds that improving any single variable marginally doesn't close the gap. The 18-point default lead shrinks only when multiple factors align above high thresholds simultaneously: strong consolidation, a favorable national environment, A-grade fundraising, and unaffiliated mobilization. All four levers, all at elevated settings. That's the mathematical structure of Hamilton's challenge.

The model also tests specific historical scenarios. The "Kelly Coalition" preset replicates 2022 governor race dynamics — strong consolidation, favorable national environment, energized unaffiliated voters. The "Orman Repeat" preset reproduces 2014's conditions — fragmented opposition, low fundraising, strong Republican national environment. There's a "Perfect Storm" preset that pushes every variable to near-maximum favorable conditions.

The 42% ceiling has a structural explanation. The engine gives an independent candidate a modest crossover advantage over a Democratic candidate: Orman (2014) outperformed Bollier (2020) slightly despite Bollier's superior fundraising. But the maximum Republican crossover rate the model calibrates is still capped well below what would be needed to win statewide without consolidating the Democratic base first. The two prior challengers who got closest both hit that ceiling: Orman at 42.5%, Bollier at 41.8%. Hamilton would need to crack it.

The county map, regional breakdown, sortable county table, and sensitivity panel are all live at forecast.capitolbee.com. We'll be updating presets as the field clarifies — including explicit Davids-in and Davids-out configurations.

There's a question Hamilton has pointedly declined to answer: if elected, which party would he caucus with?

"That's a great question and I'm not prepared to answer that question right now," he said in a recent interview. "I'd be caucusing in one sense with the people of the state of Kansas."

That's a non-answer that will not satisfy voters (or political operatives) for long. Historically, independent U.S. Senators have caucused with one of the two parties; both Bernie Sanders and Angus King caucus with Democrats. Hamilton's refusal to answer signals either genuine ambiguity about his politics or a deliberate strategy to avoid being labeled before he's locked in his base. Either way, the question will follow him.

The answer also has direct practical consequences. A Senate that enters 2027 closely divided may not give an independent senator the luxury of pure independence. Committee assignments, leadership negotiations, and agenda-setting power all flow through party structures.

Hamilton is not a long-shot candidate the way most independent Senate candidates are. He has statewide name recognition rooted in a non-political institution, genuine crossover appeal that predates the race, and the capacity to raise meaningful money quickly if he decides to run. He also has, unusually for a political newcomer, a pre-built community of tens of thousands of Kansans who trust him personally.

But the structural case against him is real, and SimKansas quantifies it. Marshall is not a scandal-plagued incumbent. He is a conventional, Trump-aligned conservative in a state that has rewarded exactly that profile for decades. No non-Republican Senate candidate has broken 43% in Kansas in nearly 50 years.

Hamilton’s bet is that 2026 is not a normal year; that the 2022 inflection point (the amendment vote, Kelly's re-election) revealed a genuinely changed Kansas electorate that partisan election results have been obscuring; and that a national environment increasingly hostile to the party in power creates an opening that hasn't existed in Kansas federal politics in a generation. That bet might be wrong. But it is not an irrational bet.

The model shows a path. It also shows how many things have to go right simultaneously to walk it.

Hamilton has said he'll announce his decision in mid-April, after Easter. Here's what will shape that decision and what we'll be tracking:

Whether Hamilton's Lenten listening tour produces a groundswell or polite enthusiasm. The difference matters enormously for his fundraising calculus and for whether he can build the petition infrastructure. His church's reach into Johnson County is real; his reach into Sedgwick County and western Kansas is not yet tested.

Whether Marshall's approval numbers in Kansas track national Republican trends, or hold firm. The National Environment slider in SimKansas is the one variable Hamilton controls least. A midterm environment broadly hostile to Republicans nationally could produce a closer race than historical patterns suggest…though Kansas has resisted that logic before.

Whether Hamilton can solve the consolidation problem without the Democrats solving it for him. The model's clearest finding is that consolidation is the load-bearing variable. If Democratic voters and unaffiliated voters see Hamilton as the credible challenger, the race tightens substantially. If they split between Hamilton and a Democratic nominee, the race becomes a replay of 2014.

And, plainly: whether Hamilton himself, after a season of prayer and conversation, believes he can win. He has said from the start that he would only run if he heard a clear call. In Kansas, hearing a call and answering it have not always led to the same place.

We'll continue tracking this race at capitolbee.com and updating SimKansas scenarios at forecast.capitolbee.com as the field develops.

Capitol Bee is a nonprofit civic journalism project of Civic Clarity, Inc. We don't have a paywall because we believe transparent government reporting should be accessible to everyone.