Conservative prairie heartland states in center of startling midterm battle
By Renee Hickman
GARDEN CITY, Kansas, Oct 20 (Reuters) - The last time the state of Kansas sent a Democrat to the US Senate, the Great Depression was ravaging the state, wheat prices had collapsed and drought was turning the Great Plains into the Dust Bowl.
Some 94 years later, Kansas may do it again.
Opinion polls show Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, running neck and neck with or ahead of Republican US Senator Roger Marshall in a state that Republican President Donald Trump won in 2024 with more than 57% of the vote.
The unexpectedly competitive race reflects strains in the Republican heartland, where Democrats are betting that soaring farm costs, including near-record-high diesel, and discontent with Trump's immigration crackdown can revive the region's progressive populist tradition.
In the converted grain bin that serves as an office for Vance and Louise Ehmke's wheat farm and seed business, John Brown, the abolitionist who took up arms against slavery in Kansas, stares down from a reproduction of a famous painting.
In 1885, 20 years after the Civil War, Vance Ehmke's ancestors started farming in western Kansas. But now, climbing costs linked to the US-Israeli war on Iran have him contemplating a dark future for his farm and others around it.
"During the past year, we have seen fuel prices just darn near double," Ehmke said. "That's cost us $50,000 of unexpected expenses."
COST OF FUEL, FERTILIZER
Fuel and fertilizer prices have shot up dramatically since the war started in February, with diesel used to power farm equipment up 70% since the war began.
Those rising costs have reverberated in states like Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska, where agriculture dominates local economies.
In Iowa, opinion polls show Republican US Representative Ashley Hinson in a tight Senate race with Democrat Josh Turek for the seat being vacated by Republican Joni Ernst.
Hinson called last month for an "immediate end" to the Iran war in a social media post that said Iowans "shouldn't have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war."
In Nebraska, Republican Senator Pete Ricketts faces a competitive race against independent Dan Osborn, despite Trump winning the state by more than 20 points in 2024.
Democrats need to pick up four US Senate seats to win control of the chamber.
TRUMP, JD VANCE STUMP FOR AT-RISK REPUBLICANS
Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other Republicans have stumped for at-risk candidates in the Midwest region. Trump pledged in Nebraska this month to expand access to tax-exempt diesel fuel and planned a rally this week in the Wichita area.
Hamilton still has an uphill climb with many rural Kansas voters. Not far from the Ehmkes is another farm owned by Ron Suppes, a Republican who supports Marshall.
"We've had high diesel prices in prior years. I don't know if it matters which administration," he said.
"I'll put up with the pain for a while."
Another Trump priority hit the Kansas meatpacking industry in late September, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 104 people in Dodge City, Garden City, Liberal and surrounding areas, according to the US Attorney's Office for the District of Kansas.
Amid voter anger over high beef prices, the raids slowed operations at major processors including Cargill and National Beef as some employees stayed home for fear of arrest. The raids may also have affected the traditionally conservative politics of those towns.
Wichita State University's IKE Lab found a significant jump in September voter registrations in counties where the ICE raids took place, researcher and professor Alexandra Middlewood said.
VOTER REGISTRATIONS RISE
Oscar Soto, a grocery store owner in Dodge City, was shocked when he began seeing social media reports of ICE agents flooding his town on September 22. He joined with a group of community organizers to take meals to families afraid to leave home or whose providers had been arrested.
He said what he saw that week as he volunteered inspired him to register to vote for the first time at the age of 39.
"What can I do to help make any difference at all?" he said he asked himself. "And the one thing I landed on was voting."
He said he planned to vote for the Democrat.
In the 2024 election, Trump won nearly half the Hispanic vote, but an October 5 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed just 24% of Hispanic Americans now approve of Trump's performance in the White House. Hispanic voters made up more than 9% of Kansas voters in 2024, according to the Pew Research Center.
CAMPAIGNS TRADE ATTACKS
Marshall's campaign has criticized Hamilton over an incident in which a volunteer at a camp connected to his church was accused of molesting two teenage boys. Church leaders initially only investigated the incident internally, later reporting it to police when the volunteer returned to the camp and was again accused of inappropriate behavior.
Hamilton has since said the church should have gone to police first and that it changed its policy after the incident to require that.
Hamilton's campaign, in turn, has highlighted a September New York Times report that Marshall, an obstetrician before entering politics, sued more than 700 patients over unpaid medical bills. Marshall said he had followed typical collection practices.
Marshall's campaign did not respond to a request for an interview but issued a statement that said in part he had delivered for farmers, cut middle-class taxes and secured the border, and sought to tie Hamilton to national Democrats, calling him a "Chuck Schumer-funded Democrat," referring to the Senate minority leader from New York.
In Garden City on October 9, a group of voters awaited Hamilton's visit in a small café, including Michael Shull, a retired pediatrician and registered Republican.
Shull said he supported Hamilton because of his moderate political stances and because "he's willing to talk to people."
Speaking to Reuters after the event, Hamilton zeroed in on the message sent by voters like Shull in reliably Republican Kansas.
"It's not just that Kansas is in play, and we might flip a seat," Hamilton said. "It's that people in a reliably red state are saying what's happening in Washington, DC, is not OK."
(Reporting by Renee Hickman; Editing by Michael Learmonth and Howard Goller)
