Could a Kansas Democrat finally win a U.S. Senate seat after 9 decades of Republicans?
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From KCUR, this is Up to Date with Steve Kraske. I'm senior producer Zach Wilson. Political scientist Bob Beatty of Washburn University recently told the Kansas Reflector he believes the Senate race between Republican Roger Marshall and Democrat Adam Hamilton will be the most important Senate race in the country come November. So today he joined Steve to provide his insights on that race in Kansas, as well as the gubernatorial race between Cindy Holsher and Ty Masterson.
Let's start with the Senate and that big Senate race between Republican incumbent Roger Marshall and Democrat Adam Hamilton. Bob, tell us why you view it as such a critical race.
Well, there's lots of history in Kansas that for Democrats is not good history. Kansas has the longest one-party streak. If you're a Republican, that means it's a winning streak. If you're a Democrat, it's a losing streak in the nation for the US Senate. The last Democrat to win was 1932. And so it's, you know, it's almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy that a Democrat can't win in Kansas. But we know that it's like politics are like sports. It's not true. Anything's possible in any given election, but it has become Incredibly difficult. And over the years, Democrats have gotten excited about a candidate or a race going back to 1974, Bob Dole and Bill Roy, and then been sorely disappointed. So, Steve, the interesting thing about this year is that 10 Democrats declared early a number of months ago, and nobody got overly excited about them.
They really didn't raise any money at all. Uh, and all of a sudden Adam Hamilton, uh, appears. And as soon as I, you know, I, I met him on your show actually, but he appeared on your show and you asked me, do you know anything about Adam Hamilton? I'm in Topeka. I said, no idea, Steve. Um, so I started looking him up and, um, I was impressed, but the biggest thing that I was impressed by was seeing his sermons. and the videos from his church and that's really important because he can jump into this race being able to get his message across without training i don't and i don't mean that to disparage new candidates but he's never run for office right he essentially can skip a major portion of running for office, which is learning how to communicate.
Yeah. And
that communication aspect is so important for any candidate, particularly a statewide candidate, right?
So important. And it's not just being able to speak. It's being able to use social media to make videos to, you know, to counter arguments. And then, of course, he did jump in the race and raised a million dollars in one week. And I was like, holy cats. I knew immediately we've got a race in Kansas. And then the last thing I'll say, which really cracked me up, but it's politics, right? But what really cracked me up is that Kansas Democrats didn't understand it. I think I would give you some credit. I think you do. We've followed politics.
Why is the Kansas U.S. Senate race considered the most important race in the country?
We've seen campaigns. Soon as we saw him, we're like, wow, this could be a good race in the fall. And Kansas Democrats were like, oh, I don't know. I like this. candidate out of Wichita who's raised $80,000. So it just cracked me up that the last people to the party were Kansas Democrats. Steve, in the primary, 65% of Kansas Democrats didn't vote for Adam Hamilton. So I don't know if they still know what they have, Kansas Democrats, but I think the national folks
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–4:16
2
Why is the Kansas U.S. Senate race considered the most important race in the country?
4:16–8:27
3
How did Democrats’ historic losing streak in Kansas Senate races shape the 2024 contest?
8:27–14:04
4
What makes Adam Hamilton’s candidacy different from previous Kansas Democratic hopefuls?
14:04–21:28
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Up To Date
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