Adam Hamilton, a Democrat and first-time political candidate, is running for U.S. Senate in Kansas in the Nov. 3, 2026, general election, according to AP News. He faces Republican Roger Wayne Marshall and Libertarian David C. Graham, according to BallotReady election data.

Hamilton is the founder and senior pastor of the Church of the Resurrection, the nation's largest United Methodist church, which he built 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, AP News reported. Before deciding to run, Hamilton said he went on a listening tour, visiting communities across Kansas to hear residents' concerns, according to his campaign website.

Candidate information

  • Age: 61
  • Hometown: Grew up in Prairie Village, according to his campaign website
  • Family: Hamilton said he married his high school sweetheart, LaVon, the week after graduation. They celebrated their 44th anniversary in June 2026 and have two daughters and a granddaughter, according to his campaign website.
  • Education: Master's in theology from Southern Methodist University
  • Background: Hamilton has described himself as a fifth-generation Kansan whose family came to Dickinson County 147 years ago and helped build the towns of Hope and Elmo. His mother's parents came to Wichita to work at Beechcraft, and his grandfather went on to fly for TWA, according to his campaign website. He has written more than 30 books, mostly on Christian theology, AP News reported.

Experience and public service

Hamilton has served as founder and pastor of the Church of the Resurrection since 1990. He is a first-time candidate.

His congregation has given hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours and raised tens of millions of dollars to support communities in need, Hamilton said on his campaign website. The church became the largest source of donated food in Kansas City after the regional food bank, the area's largest sponsor of blood drives, and funded a mobile dental clinic that treats 2,700 children a year at their schools, according to his campaign website.

If elected, Hamilton said he plans to continue as senior pastor, preaching 12 to 18 times a year, AP News reported.

On the issues

The following positions are from Hamilton's campaign website.

Healthcare and seniors: Hamilton said he supports expanding Medicare drug price negotiation and extending savings to private insurance, reversing Medicaid cuts, restoring Affordable Care Act subsidies, and protecting and investing in rural hospitals. He said he supports reforming medical billing and medical debt. Hamilton said he supports protecting a woman's right to choose while codifying access to contraception. On seniors, he said he supports protecting Social Security, expanding Medicare to cover vision and dental, prioritizing home-based care reimbursement, and protecting seniors from higher prices fueled by tariffs.

Agriculture: Hamilton said he supports protecting Kansas farmers from tariffs and expanding export markets, funding an overwhelming response to animal disease outbreaks, passing the full farm bill, giving agriculture a stable legal workforce through H-2A reform, making fertilizer in America, cutting prices at the pump with year-round E15, and banning algorithmic price-fixing at grocery stores.

Housing: Hamilton said he supports ending tariffs that drive up home-building costs, modernizing regulations for modular homes, banning Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes, creating tax credits for first-time home buyers and public servants, and stopping anticompetitive price collusion by landlords.

Energy and economy: Hamilton said he supports ending tariffs and unnecessary wars that drive up energy costs, requiring congressional approval for new tariffs, requiring data centers to pay their fair share of electricity costs, restoring energy production tax credits, and competitive bidding for transmission projects. He said he is focused on addressing the high costs of food, energy and healthcare straining Kansas families.

Endorsements

Hamilton has received endorsements from the following, according to The Hill and BallotReady:

  • Bill Graves, former Republican Kansas governor, who said the country is "facing increasing partisan gridlock and division" and that it's "time Kansas does something different"
  • AFL-CIO

Candidate responses were gathered from Hamilton's campaign website and public reporting. The Wichita Ledger's election coverage is AI-curated and human-edited.