Politics
Wisconsin Democrats’ governor primary is an all-out fight over electability
KENOSHA, Wisconsin — The progressive movement’s midterms march has arrived in Wisconsin, where a democratic socialist is forcing establishment Democrats to mount an all-out, last-ditch effort to stop her.
State Rep. Francesca Hong is the front-runner to become the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, fueled by a populist campaign tapping into voters’ cost of living concerns. David Crowley, the Milwaukee County Executive backed by outgoing Gov. Tony Evers, has emerged as the top candidate trying to cut off Hong’s bid.
Ahead of Tuesday’s primary, electability was top of mind for voters and both candidates as they raced to prove they could build the widest, strongest coalition against presumptive Republican nominee Tom Tiffany.
Crowley and Evers have been barnstorming the swing state over the past week, warning a vote for Hong risks losing the governor’s mansion in November to Tiffany, a hard-right member of the House Freedom Caucus backed by President Donald Trump.
“You know, it’s the only time that I know that the governor — Tony Evers — the Republican Governors Association and Turning Point USA have ever been on the same page: in thinking that Francesca Hong is the best candidate to lose this race,” Crowley said in an interview at a local tavern in Sheboygan on Friday.
Hong rejects those warnings. Speaking to voters at events across the state, Hong argues Democratic voters are fed up with the establishment ahead of November — and that she can appeal to a wide array of Democrats, Republicans and people who don’t feel represented by either party.
“We have to take this moment, a movement moment, and be bold with transformative change, and build the actual big tent that we can and we must be as Democrats,” Hong told a crowd of about 50 people gathered at a senior community center in deep-red Siren.
Hong, a 37-year-old former chef and single mother who represents the bluest district in the state assembly, has charted a remarkably rapid rise in a purple state that Trump won by just shy of 30,000 votes in 2024. She launched her campaign as a long shot, with far less name recognition than other Democrats in the race like Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. Both of them have since dropped out. And despite being at a consistent fundraising disadvantage — Hong still has not put out a single television ad — the progressive has maintained wide leads in public polling.
But Hong’s campaign has also faced intense scrutiny over a string of controversial past social media posts, including advocating for defunding the police and railing against Thanksgiving. She was later slammed for being unable to give a straightforward answer to CNN about whether she would “cancel Thanksgiving.”
Following those missteps, Hong’s team has clamped down on her interactions with both local and national media at campaign events in the final stretch. She has also moderated some of her past positions in public remarks, emphasizing repeatedly that she is “serious about public safety” and even attempting to eschew some of her anti-establishment ties.
On Wednesday, she reversed herself on Thanksgiving, telling POLITICO that it was, in fact, her favorite holiday. And asked by Blue Light News on Saturday if she had any regrets about her past, she told reporters at a campaign stop in Sheboygan that she had learned from her tweets.
“I had some hot takes, some bad takes on Twitter, but when you’re a business owner running a restaurant during Covid, trying to pay bills as a student, you’re putting feelings out there into the world,” Hong said. “But I’ve evolved, I’ve learned. I think it’s more dishonest not to learn.”
Hong has leaned heavily into affordability policies, including raising the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $20, progressive taxation and a statewide one-year moratorium on data center construction — a salient issue in Wisconsin, where several local governments have already voted on moratoriums.
“While many of our supporters or other folks have framed us as anti-establishment, what we are for is working-class people,” she told Blue Light News. “It’s not so much being anti-establishment as it is ensuring that we’re listening to voters who are demanding change.”
But many Democrats in the state worry her ideology — including the old social media posts hawking far-left talking points — will be a political risk in a battleground general election.
Pro-Republican PACs, including one associated with the Republican Governors Association, have spent millions of dollars to boost Hong in the primary so they can face who they perceive to be a weaker candidate in November.
Kyle Kilbourn, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran against Tiffany for his House seat in 2024, said he still had not decided who to support in the primary because of concerns about “electability statewide.”
“The last several elections have been very very close, by one or two percentage points, and so it matters,” he told Blue Light News while attending a Hong event at a brewery in Rhinelander.
Even some of Hong’s supporters are anxious.
“It’s always going to be a concern,” Jan Stroman, who attended an event in River Falls, said when asked if Hong could win against Tiffany.
Robert LaGesse, 74, said at an event in far-north Superior on Friday he was voting for Hong — but admitted Hong’s tweets about abolishing the police “sounds like a foolish statement that could hurt her big time.”
At the same event, a young Hong campaign volunteer asked her about those social media posts.“I’m not going to abolish the police as governor,” Hong responded. “I cannot and I will not defund the police.” She was asked a similar version of the same question at nearly every other event last week.
Some supporters also fear that Hong will face racist and sexist backlash as an Asian American woman. Wisconsin has never elected a governor who is not a white man.
“There’s a lot of sexism yet in our country,” Tim Freiss, 60 — a Hong supporter who previously voted for both Bush presidencies — said in an interview outside his home in Green Bay.
“Honestly, what I’m worried about is her race, because our state is very racist,” another Hong supporter, Heidi Meyer, 48, said as Hong canvassed her neighborhood in Appleton.
Democratic officials in the Badger State are determined to unify after the primary, but many are deeply concerned Hong isn’t running the disciplined campaign required to defeat a Trump-backed Republican in Wisconsin.
The messy race has also deeply divided Democrats in the state. Hong’s allies bristle at Evers’ campaign against her, using his resources — including his own communications staff — to boost Crowley. Evers defeated Republican then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2018 by deploying his brand of more moderate Democratic policies to win over independents and limit deep losses in rural areas. But he decided not to run for a rare third term as governor.
Evers on Friday would not commit to endorsing or campaigning with Hong should she win — though Democrats expect he’ll have to.
“I want to have a chance to take a breath, and once that’s in a position, we’ll see,” Evers said in an interview as he walked with Crowley from a Hmong family-owned bakery in Sheboygan to the corner tavern packed with supporters.
Crowley, asked if he would campaign for Hong this fall if she wins the nomination, shot back with a smile: “Ask her that too.” But he quickly added: “I want to be very clear: I’m not in this race running against any of my opponents. I’m running for the votes of Wisconsinites, and if they don’t choose me to be the nominee, my job is to make sure that it’s blue no matter who.”
Asked Saturday if she would endorse and campaign with Crowley if he wins on Tuesday, Hong replied with one word: “Yes.”
Hong has admitted the democratic socialist label comes with baggage — “I can’t say I always love it for me,” she said at a restaurant in River Falls — but she also rejected the notion that her campaign is undisciplined and noted that establishment Democrats had consistently underestimated her bid. She hopes to work with Democrats across the ideological spectrum in the sprint toward November.
“We’re a serious campaign that has built a movement and turned out new voters, folks who are voting for the first time,” Hong said. “We’re a serious campaign that knows how to win, but we’re also serious about working as a coalition and making sure that we collaborate and coordinate with the people that we need to to make sure we defeat Tom Tiffany in the fall.”
Crowley has charted a more moderate path than Hong’s blistering democratic socialism. In an interview, he argued the party needs “someone who’s not just going to fight back, but also who can sit at the negotiating table and be able to work with folks who want to deliver for those that we represent.” He also ruled out the data center moratorium popular with a wide swath of voters that Hong is running on and using to pull in some pockets of rural support: “So, the way I hear that question is that we’re going to preempt local communities from not being able to focus on their own economic development,” Crowley said.
There are signs that Crowley is making some gains. But he’s still 20 percentage points behind Hong in the latest polling.
“Crowley is closing the gap, but it’s likely too little, too late,” said one longtime Wisconsin Democratic strategist, who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss the governor’s pick.
Crowley’s team argues that Wisconsin polling is likely off just as it was in Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed clinched the Democratic Senate nomination last week by a tighter than expected margin. But the signs of Hong’s strength are evident across the state, beyond just her stronghold of Madison. The first voter Crowley greeted at his opening Sheboygan stop Friday, Paige Gerber, said in an interview later she had already voted early for Hong.
Supporters at the Crowley event later in the day were well aware of his standing. Voter after voter in interviews with Blue Light News expressed alarm that their party was poised to pick Hong, a losing horse in their view.
Retirees in “radicalized by basic decency” T-shirts sipped on beer and cheered when Evers walked through the door with Crowley, alongside local IBEW union workers and teachers. “Tony! Tony!” chants eventually rang through the bar.
A Crowley staffer at one point tried to start a “David! David!” cheer. But it never caught on.
Tyler Katzenberger contributed to this report.
GIRDWOOD, Alaska — Dan Sullivan isn’t running away from President Donald Trump like so many other vulnerable Republicans. He’s betting that walking the line instead will help him reap reelection in November.
During a candidate debate, speaking at an economic forum and in an interview with Playbook this week, Sullivan repeatedly denied chances to put distance between himself and Trump’s most unpopular policies and positions.
Has the economic pain from the war with Iran been worth it for Alaskans? “The real economic pain is when Democrats get control,” Sullivan told Blue Light News, sitting in the shadow of a well-antlered taxidermy moose head, next to a roaring fire, at a ski resort tucked up in the mountains off the Turnagain Arm southeast of Anchorage.
What about the $5,000 dividends Trump has promised voters if Republicans hold control of Congress, as he did at a rally for Sullivan in Wasilla on Tuesday? “I’ve got to look at the legislation. I don’t know,” Sullivan said. “That was the first time I heard it from him, and I would just evaluate that if and when it happens.”
Does he want to see data centers — which Trump has pushed for further development despite some pushback from local communities — pop up on Alaska’s undeveloped land? He’s not putting his foot down. “They definitely got to pay their own way in terms of energy,” Sullivan said. “They have to have local input and approval, and we’ll see.”
Still, Sullivan bristled on some issues that touch closer to home.
In light of Trump’s decision to import Russian diesel, did Sullivan think the Trump administration was being too friendly with Russia? “I thought you were asking me campaign stuff,” Sullivan replied. “Is this like a hit piece or what?”
Though his office put out a statement decrying the move, Sullivan didn’t sign a bipartisan letter calling on the president to reverse the decision, instead taking his concerns straight to the White House. “I speak to the administration all the time on the issues of high energy costs,” Sullivan said.
Art Hackney, a veteran Republican strategist in Alaska who runs a pro-Sullivan super PAC called “We Stand with Dan,” said in an interview that another part of the calculus is that Murkowski has provided a straightforward example of how Trump treats Republicans who publicly disagree with him.
“If Dan did something considered a disrespectful trigger or something, what do you think would happen? It could well have implications for things that affect Alaska’s economy.”
But Trump, for better or worse, is a centerpiece of races like Sullivan’s. The president has pleaded with voters at rallies to “pretend I’m on the ballot” — just as he did alongside Sullivan on Tuesday.
And Alaska’s tighter-than-expected Senate race is poised to be a linchpin for deciding which party holds control of the chamber. Alaska, Ohio and Iowa are the races that Trump officials view as increasingly critical to keep their majority, according to three GOP officials familiar with the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc.’s strategy, granted anonymity to candidly assess the midterms.
Sullivan only sees Trump’s presence as a boon. “I think the rally certainly helps in terms of energizing the base,” Sullivan said.
He’s proud to have the president campaign alongside him, plus Vice President JD Vance, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
“I’m bringing up my people,” Sullivan said. “I’m not afraid of that.”
Polls show Sullivan tied with or trailing former Rep. Mary Peltola, one of Democrats’ top hopes to help flip the Senate. On paper, this contest shouldn’t be close: Peltola lost her House seat after just one term.
“It was Trump plus-13 two years ago, so it is not the position we’d love to be in, but we’re doing what we do to help get him across the finish line,” said Kevin Greene, the state director for Americans for Prosperity-Alaska, which has knocked on tens of thousands of doors for Sullivan.
On one such door-to-door trip with Greene in Anchorage on Thursday morning, voters across approximately a dozen houses were about evenly split between supporting Sullivan or Peltola. Only one agreed to speak on the record to Blue Light News: John Baker, a 67-year-old retiree who said he used to be a Republican but would be supporting Peltola this year.
What happened? “Donald Trump happened,” Baker said. He added that his support for Peltola was 70% because he wanted to see Democrats take the Senate and 30% because he liked her as a candidate.
Peltola, the first Alaska Native to represent the state in Congress, has centered her campaign around “fish, family, and freedom” while capitalizing on voters’ frustrations with the high cost of energy and goods, particularly in remote communities. She has focused on outreach to villages in the Alaskan bush and has largely shied away from national attention, including from the media.
The former congresswoman has some major liabilities that Sullivan often slams. Just two years ago, she lost her reelection bid after only one full term. She has sought to distance herself from the Biden administration, which remains unpopular in the state. She has a reputation for missing meetings and votes. And a New York Times report last month alleged that she created a hostile work environment and regularly used slurs and other offensive language.
Even those close to her campaign, though optimistic, acknowledge it’s still an uphill battle.
“It’s always been long odds,” said John-Henry Heckendorn, a Democratic strategist in Alaska whose firm is supporting Peltola outside of her official campaign. Peltola, he said, would have to do about twice as well as the Democratic Senate challengers in the past four cycles in order to win.
At the debate on Thursday, Peltola said she “prided” herself on being “available to Alaskan press” — though she acknowledged she has “really demurred from national attention, from national outlets.”
After the debate, Blue Light News asked Peltola: “You said you’re accessible to the press. Will you take some questions?” She smiled, then walked away quickly, with an aide saying she had a dinner to attend. “She’s hoping that the Joe Biden bunker mentality will win, and you know, maybe it will,” Sullivan told Blue Light News on Friday. “I don’t think it will. I think Alaskans can see through it.”
Peltola’s campaign declined several interview requests for this story. In an email to Blue Light News, the campaign noted that Sullivan was in the top quarter of most-absent senators, and that Peltola had to miss congressional votes when both her husband and mother died. The email also noted that Peltola helped secure the Willow oil-drilling project and has a record of bucking her fellow Democrats. Peltola has hosted at least 16 events in Alaska this month, the campaign said, and has interviewed with eight news outlets in the past week.
“Dan Sullivan has tripled his wealth in the Senate and voted fourteen times for the war in Iran that is raising costs one everything from gas to groceries, Mary has been talking with Alaskans in every corner of the state about her plan to take on the rigged system in DC, lower costs, and put Alaska first,” Harry Child, a campaign spokesperson, said in a statement to Blue Light News.
Sullivan is leaning on his strong legislative record and support for oil and gas development in the state. He has sought to tie Peltola to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and has attributed her massive fundraising edge to “lower-48 liberal millionaires and billionaires who want to turn Alaska into national parks.”
Though he’s largely embracing Trump, there’s still moments of disagreement. But even in those spaces, he’s touting his close ties to the White House and effectiveness as a Washington operator instead of pushing the president away.
Sullivan was opposed to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream the execution of the convicted Fort Hood shooter, and told Blue Light News “there’s probably no senator weighing in more with senior White House and directly with the Secretary of War than me, saying this is not a good idea.” Trump called off the livestream on Thursday.
Trump’s approval rating here, like the country at large, is underwater. The war with Iran has hit Alaska hard, where nearly all goods are imported by plane or barge, with urban gas prices hovering around $5 per gallon and prices in the bush often double that. In a year when Republican voters may be more likely to stay home without Trump on the ballot — Democrats eye an opening.
“We have a golden opportunity with a fantastic candidate on our end and a really mediocre one on theirs,” said Alaska Democratic Party Chair Eric Croft. “I think we’ve been coming that way for a long time, and this is our chance to pump through.”
Trump on Tuesday flew more than eight hours from Washington to Wasilla, home of Sarah Palin and the Iditarod, with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, FCC Chair Brendan Carr and FHFA Administrator Bill Pulte in tow. He announced that Taiwan had joined South Korea in its commitments to a proposed Alaska energy pipeline — though the project is still in flux — and that the FCC will vote this month to invest an additional $162 million to expand high-speed internet in the state.
Thousands of the president’s fans piled into the ice hockey rink and thousands more gathered outside, watching Trump speak on a jumbotron. Asked by Blue Light News what he thought about Peltola, rally attendee Jeff Caswell, 59, replied: “I don’t.”
But in a state where independents outnumber Republicans, that enthusiasm may only go so far.
“Very conservative MAGA voters can’t vote for you harder,” said Scott Kendall, a veteran political strategist who worked on two of Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s campaigns and was chief of staff to former Alaska Gov. Bill Walker. “Donald Trump’s support in this current climate is both a blessing and a curse,” Kendall noted.
Even some reliable Trump supporters at the rally acknowledged the outlook appeared bleak.
“I think Alaska’s turning blue,” Matt Niessink, a 45-year-old general contractor from Wasilla, said at the rally. He said he had voted for Trump three times and planned to support Republicans this year.
What did he wish the president would do differently?
“I wish he’d shut his mouth sometimes and not be such a pompous ass,” Niessink said.
Donald Trump is barnstorming the country to boost Republicans in the final weeks of the midterms. But many candidates want to keep that support quiet.
The president is nowhere to be found in GOP ads, even in red states where Republicans were happy to tout his endorsement two years ago. And some candidates are hesitant to appear with Trump on the campaign trail — even as they hope he will help juice turnout among the MAGA base in November.
Democratic House and Senate candidates and outside groups have spent $145 million on general election ads mentioning Trump, while Republicans have spent just $8 million, according to a Blue Light News analysis of data from AdImpact, which tracks political advertising. That’s in sharp contrast to 2024, when GOP candidates spent $62 million on ads mentioning Trump.
“Trump is at historic lows right now, so if he comes to your district or state, it’s about getting the Republican base vote out there and that can certainly help,” said Ron Bonjean, a longtime GOP strategist. “But it’s really important for the candidates not to be talking about Trump 24/7 on the campaign trail.”
The unfavorable national political environment leaves few incentives for GOP candidates to tie themselves to Trump, and more and more Republicans in competitive races have broken with the president on issues such as the Iran war and tariffs.
When Republicans do mention Trump in ads, they often aren’t touting his support. In Alaska, GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan has run an ad citing how he “voted to force Trump’s DOJ to release the Epstein files.”
The silence on the airwaves is especially stark in red states like Nebraska and Ohio. In 2024, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), who was facing a challenge from independent Dan Osborn, and now-Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who was challenging then-Sen. Sherrod Brown, both ran several general election ads featuring endorsements from Trump. The president won Nebraska by more than 20 points and Ohio by 12 points that year, with Fischer and Moreno also winning their races.
But this cycle, the GOP isn’t focusing its ads on Trump in either state, as the match-up between Osborn and Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts heats up in Nebraska and Brown seeks to oust Republican Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio.
Both Ricketts and Husted appeared at Trump rallies earlier this month. Still, Trump is absent from all Republican Senate ads in Ohio, and the only Ricketts ads that name the president accuse Osborn of disparaging Trump supporters — but don’t mention Trump’s endorsement.
“The war in Iran, I think, has become a real noose around the neck of Republican candidates because of the affordability crisis,” said former Ohio Rep. Jim Renacci. A nonprofit he works with surveyed voters on whether GOP candidates should appear with Trump and found that “in most cases you do not want [Trump] standing near you, which is why I was a little bit surprised that Jon Husted has had two events with President Trump, because I do believe there’s a strong headwind in Ohio, and a big change from 2024.”
Husted’s campaign spokesperson Amy Natoce told Blue Light News in a statement, “President Trump won Ohio decisively three times by 8 points, 8 points and 11 points. If we successfully turn out the MAGA vote this November, then we will retire Sherrod Brown for good.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee did not respond to a request for comment.
“President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party, and he is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said. “The choice has never been more clear: doubling down on President Trump’s winning, commonsense agenda or the Democrats’ extreme liberal policies and obstruction.”
Another Republican operative, who is based in Ohio and like others was granted anonymity to speak candidly about their own party, said GOP candidates need to find a way to talk about the Trump administration — no tax on tips, protecting social security — without mentioning the guy in the Oval Office.
“This is a historically unpopular president,” said the strategist, who has worked on multiple statewide races over the course of the last 15 years. “We all agree with that, and so it’s kind of hard to attach yourself on the airways, I think, too closely to him.”
Trump’s rallies, unlike candidates’ ads, are seen more as targeting the president’s base. He’s not only visiting traditional battlegrounds like Georgia and Michigan, but also typically safe red states like Alabama and Kansas.
Still, his events have been a source of tension with some GOP candidates. When Trump’s team was making plans for the president to campaign in Michigan last week potentially in western Michigan, several Republican candidates and their teams up and down the ticket initially didn’t know whether they should attend and be seen with the president, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the conversations, who were granted anonymity to share private details. They were concerned about being associated with Trump’s tariffs, which have hammered the state, along with high fuel prices amid the Iran war.
Trump officials scrapped the event and said the president would visit the state later in the month. Trump is now scheduled for a rally in the state on Oct. 25.
“[Republican candidates] are going to do what they need to do,” said one GOP pollster close to the White House. “What the White House and the president are doing is they are targeting places where they think the president can be helpful.”
Trump has allowed Republicans to discuss issues pertaining to their states or districts as “he understands that it is not a balk on him,” said one White House official, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
If Trump “was to believe that all these individuals were balking him, I A) don’t think that he would want to be on the road every day, and B) I do think that you would probably see a more vocal President Donald J. Trump on Truth, et cetera, kind of voicing his opinion on it,” the official said.
The president and his team are giving most Senate GOP candidates especially a wide latitude to break with some of his policies at times, according to two other White House officials involved in the conversations. Trump, they said, understands the need for vulnerable candidates to create some distance, even though in the past he has lashed out at members of his party for similar moves.
Republicans in the more MAGA-friendly House, however, are expected to run more in lock-step with the president. Only the most at-risk candidates are afforded some room to break with Trump, the officials said, given the tidal wave of chaos that can spur within the conference.
One GOP strategist working on a battleground House race, granted anonymity to discuss private information, said he had gotten pre-approved from the White House for his candidate to miss a planned rally. Still, the strategist cautioned, that doesn’t mean Trump won’t berate someone from the stage when he notices the candidate is missing.
Republicans still see Trump as a unique motivator for his base and rallies as a tool to help turn out voters who might be driven by the president. With Democratic voters already energized by opposing Trump, the GOP has less to lose by bringing the president out to turn out MAGA voters too.
“The reality is, Democrats are going to vote in this midterm,” said Paul Shumaker, a Republican strategist from North Carolina, where Trump is set to return for a rally next week as GOP Senate nominee Michael Whatley struggles to close the gap in his race. “And what Republicans need to be doing is focus on what they can do to improve their voter turnout on their side.”
Lauren Fedor, Myah Ward, Andrew Howard and Alex Gangitano contributed to this report.
WICHITA, Kansas — Roger Marshall was running behind.
The bus Kansas Republicans booked for a five-day barnstorming tour sat idling Tuesday morning, with other statewide candidates onboard. The tour was already a few minutes delayed as state party chair Danedri Herbert awaited word from the senator who some Republicans grumble isn’t campaigning hard enough as polls show him tied or trailing.
Finally, she got word: Marshall would ride separately.
As the bus reached its first stop in rural Newton, Marshall crept aboard — and was spotted by reporters doing so. He then joined the other candidates exiting to greet the crowd like he’d been there the whole time.
Marshall is playing catch-up as he races to avoid becoming the first person to lose a Senate contest to a Democrat in the state in nearly a century. He faces the most serious challenger for a Kansas senator in over a decade as his party stares down a grim environment under President Donald Trump’s second term.
National Republicans are pouring millions into the state to prop him up; national Democrats are responding in kind, and Democrat Adam Hamilton, a well-known United Methodist pastor, is suddenly flush with cash for the campaign’s homestretch.
But some Republicans think it’s already too late for Marshall.
“He took it way too much for granted,” said former Kansas Gov. Mike Hayden, a Republican who supported Marshall’s previous campaigns but is now publicly backing Hamilton. “He’s been almost invisible, except on national television. And there’s not a lot of love in Kansas for Washington D.C.”
National Republicans have privately urged Marshall to take his race more seriously on numerous occasions, according to a person familiar with the conversations who was granted anonymity to discuss them. Marshall, this person said, never appeared too worried about the race. Marshall’s latest Federal Election Commission report indicates this may be true. He raised just $866,000 for the third quarter to $9.9 million for Hamilton, and that filing did not appear to include any full-time payments to campaign staff.
Marshall’s team did not respond to requests for comment on this article.
One Republican strategist close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly, acknowledged the race is an “uphill battle,” comparing Marshall to an “old athlete who, it takes them a lot longer to warm up to get ready for the game time, and they didn’t start that early enough.”
That strategist said that the remaining undecided voters are overwhelmingly Trump voters, and predicted they’d come home. Kansans “are mad at Republicans, but they just hate Democrats more,” the strategist said. “As much as DC Republicans are bedwetting, the ones actually working on the races are cognizant of this.”
As the race nears the homestretch, a deluge of bad press has dogged the senator: His campaign used pictures of a Kansas campground without permission and had to edit the ad; his team faces accusations of blurring the line between his official and campaign offices; his campaign reportedly didn’t pay a bill to a local bakery for six years until after the unpaid debt was made public (he apologized).
Two other stories landed the hardest.
The first focuses on a Florida property that he owns, raising questions about how much time he actually spends in Kansas. The second stems from a New York Times report that Marshall, an obstetrician-gynecologist who served two terms in the U.S. House, had allegedly taken legal action against hundreds of medical patients who didn’t pay their bills. Marshall has said he spends the bulk of his time in Washington or Kansas, calling the claims “bologna.” He called the Times’ report a “hit job by left media” and told Fox News he had “nothing else to do to with the process” after patients’ accounts went to collections.
At a Monday rally in the liberal college town of Lawrence, Hamilton told supporters that Kansans deserve a senator who isn’t just “showing up for photo ops” between “time with your family in Florida.”
“I want to know from Roger Marshall: What’s your plan when people … show up and they don’t have health insurance?” Hamilton said, standing on a hay bale in a shady park. “Is the plan we’re going to sue them? Then we’re going to have some of them arrested, and maybe a few of them put in jail?”
Hamilton’s campaign cut a face-to-camera ad with one of Marshall’s former patients, who said she was arrested when she was eight months pregnant because she missed a $50 payment to Marshall’s office. The Marshall campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter in response, saying the ad’s “message is false in every material respect,” and went up this week with its own ad of a former patient singing his praises.
National Republicans have swooped in to prop up Marshall with $11 million in planned spending in recent days. And he’s getting other reinforcements: Chris Grant, the stalwart Trump-world operative and veteran of previous Marshall campaigns, will take an expanded role on the senator’s team through Election Day, Axios first reported.
Marshall’s struggles are drawing unfavorable comparisons to the last Republican who needed to be bailed out to win a Senate race in the state.
“This race reminds me of Sen. Pat Roberts’ last race [in 2014], when he was accused of not maintaining a Kansas residence and campaigning poorly,” said one Kansas state GOP lawmaker, who was granted anonymity to speak openly.
But Republicans had a strong wind at their backs in 2014, sweeping nearly every Senate race that year; Roberts managed a 10-point win, similar to Marshall’s 11-point win in 2020. This time around, the national climate is blowing hard the other direction.
Kansas has been especially hard-hit by some of Trump’s policies. His tariffs and spiking fuel prices left the state’s row crop farmers struggling. A plan to import cheap foreign beef infuriated ranchers in a state that produces the second-most cattle annually. And his threats to cut off U.S. sales of Bombardier planes — a Canadian company whose U.S. headquarters are in Wichita — rattled the state’s robust aviation industry.
Marshall has recently shown signs he knows he’s in a fight. The normally strident MAGA backer broke with the president on the beef import plan and on a recent local immigration enforcement action, after ICE activity rattled some of his state’s agricultural towns.
He’s banking on the conservative nature of the state, working hard to paint Hamilton as a progressive who will fall in line behind Washington Democrats. “This guy is the most radical liberal Democrat in the history of Kansas to get through a primary,” Marshall said in an interview in Garden City. “He is this wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
At rallies in Newton, Hutchinson, Dodge City and Garden City, he warned that his election could decide which party controls the upper chamber. “If my opponent were elected, it would give Chuck Schumer and AOC control of the Senate,” he repeated. Recent Republican ads hit Hamilton as “woke” and “radical,” pointing to his past praise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
But as Marshall tagged along with the other GOP candidates for their barnstorming tour, holding mini-rallies across central and western Kansas on Tuesday, he was reminded how deep the anger at Washington runs right now — even in ruby-red Kansas.
In Dodge City, the self-described “cattle capital” of the country, some Republicans in the crowd grumbled about spiking fuel prices. In Newton, protesters screamed through Marshall’s speech, calling Republicans “fascists.” (“Quiet, Satan!” a disgruntled attendee retorted.) In Garden City, where ICE activity sent shockwaves last month, Marshall got an earful in a private meeting with local lawmakers over their frustration that immigration officers barged into town without coordinating with local law enforcement.
”I think the frustration is still there,” state Rep. Jason Goetz, a Republican who represents some of the cities affected by ICE enforcement.
There’s a belief among some Kansas Republicans that Marshall has thrown together so poor a campaign that if he wins, it won’t be of his own accord — it will be because of Ty Masterson, the Republican state Senate president running for governor who joined him on the bus tour and has polled a few points ahead of Marshall in most surveys.
Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a Kansas Republican who lost a U.S. House primary to Marshall in 2016, said Masterson is “going to pull everybody across the line,” a list that “absolutely” includes Marshall.
Patricia Woods, a Hutchinson resident, said at a rally that she is “100% behind Masterson.” When asked about Marshall, she said she is “kind of on the fence.”
Masterson, when asked about Marshall’s race, simply chuckled. “It’s more complicated than mine,” he said.
Adam Wren and Andrew Howard contributed reporting.
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