United Methodist Pastor Adam Hamilton announced April 30 he will run for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat.
The founding pastor of Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan., took the Lenten season to traveling the state in listening sessions as he explored the idea of a Senate campaign as an independent.
However, one of the key things he heard everywhere he went was supporters urging him to run as a Democrat.
“In all 18 places, the very first question they asked was why was I not running as a Democrat,” Hamilton explained.
He expanded on that statement in an interview with the Kansas City Star: “The first thing I heard everywhere I went — I don’t think there was a single place (where) the first thing that somebody said wasn’t, ‘Why don’t you run as a Democrat? We’re afraid that you’re going to split the votes for the Democrats and that you are going to leave Roger Marshall with a victory.’”
Marshall is the Republican incumbent in the Senate seat who is closely aligned with President Donald Trump and is a 2020 election denier and COVID denier.
Adam Hamilton talks to voters as he wraps up a U.S. Senate listening tour on Saturday, April 18, 2026, at Limitless Brewing in Lenexa, Kansas. (AP Photo/Heather Hollingsworth)
The 61-year-old pastor called himself “an independent-minded Democrat, dedicated to leading from the center.”
What’s needed in America, he said, is leaders “who put service above self, country before party and people before politics.”
He pledged to serve all Kansas residents if elected.
“I will work across the aisle. I know both parties have warts, and both parties have good attributes. I will serve all people, and our team will reflect that. We have Republicans on our team. We have Democrats on our team. We are committed to doing what we’ve done for 36 years — to work together to accomplish things and to love one another.”
Raphael Warnock
If elected to the Senate, Hamilton will not be the only pastor there. The current U.S. Congress includes five ordained ministers (three in the House and two in the Senate), with the most prominent of those being Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, pastor of historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
Hamilton also joins Presbyterian minister James Talarico, who is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas and now is polling ahead of both his potential Republican rivals.
Since the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913, only three active or former members of the clergy have been elected to the U.S. Senate. Those include Warnock, D-Ga., and James Lankford, R-Okla., who currently serve.
Another prominent Baptist pastor already is on the ballot in Texas and expected to win a seat in the U.S. House — Frederick Haynes of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas. He would become the fourth clergyperson currently serving in the House, assuming the other three also are reelected.
Hamilton attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., then earned a master of divinity degree from Perkins Seminary at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. In 1990, he and his wife founded Resurrection Church, which is so named because the congregation first met in a funeral home chapel.
That church has grown to become the largest congregation in the UMC, and Hamilton has written dozens of books and appeared in video Bible study materials used around the world. Church of the Resurrection has 24,000 members across nine campuses.
He told the regional UMC news outlet he believes the skills he’s learned as a pastor are transferable to politics.
Roger Marshall
“People said, ‘We don’t feel like our senator is listening to us,’” Hamilton said. “As I met with people, I thought, ‘I care about these people. I really could be their champion. I would fight for them.’”
In Kansas, primary elections are held much later than in other states. This year’s primaries are scheduled for Aug. 4, just three months prior to the general election in November.
As of now, Hamilton will join at least 10 other candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for Senate.
Recent statewide polling by Tavern Research found only 37% of Kansas voters have a favorable view of Marshall, the Republican incumbent, who is running unopposed in the primary. Kansas voters told pollsters they would choose Hamilton for Senate over Marshall by two points if Hamilton runs as an independent. But if he were to run as a Democrat, Marshall has an 8-point lead, that poll found.
Hamilton said his campaign’s own polling showed a different scenario that would make it much more difficult to win as an independent than as a Democrat.
Hamilton’s campaign clearly is threatening to the Kansas GOP and Marshall. The state GOP recently filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging Hamilton and his church violated the Federal Election Campaign Act by using corporate resources of the nonprofit corporation to promote Hamilton’s exploratory committee.
The Kansas GOP claims this amounts to illegal in-kind corporate contributions to a federal candidate. Both Hamilton and church leaders have denied any inappropriate or illegal actions.
Bishop David Wilson of the Great Plains UMC said he doesn’t believe any ethics violations were committed.
“Adam has assured me that Resurrection took steps to ensure separation from him as pastor and him as potential candidate when he announced his time of discernment of whether to enter the race,” Wilson said. “Announcements about his time of discernment appearing on Resurrection’s website and YouTube channel would be expected, as would any similarly large announcement from any pastor, from any church, via any of their communications vehicles about such a potentially big decision. These steps were merely ways to keep the congregation he founded more than 35 years ago informed.”
With his campaign now declared, Hamilton will remain as senior pastor of the church, working about half time while using vacation time for campaigning. He will preach some weekends, but other pastors on staff will share the pulpit at other times through the primary and, if he gains the Democratic nomination, through the November election.
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