In the first two months after officially launching his Democratic campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Kansas, the Rev. Adam Hamilton raised $3.66 million, his campaign announced Monday.
The Johnson County megachurch pastor is poised to set a record for the most money raised by a Kansas candidate in the first reporting period of a U.S. Senate campaign, federal election records show.
Hamilton’s campaign self-reported receiving donations from 16,336 individual donors between April 30 and June 30 in its quest to unseat Republican incumbent Roger Marshall.
“Adam Hamilton raised more than any Kansas Senate candidate launch in history thanks to a grassroots movement of Kansans who are sick and tired of Washington politicians like Roger Marshall,” Hamilton spokesperson Tyson Brody said in a release.
Of the 10 other Democrats vying for a chance to go head-to-head with Marshall in November, the challenger who raised the most money in the last reporting period was state Sen. Patrick Schmidt of Topeka, who collected about $177,000 between January and March. Marshall raised about $513,000 in the same period.
The next round of quarterly reports is due to be filed with the Federal Election Commission later this month.
“These numbers give Hamilton one of the strongest Senate launch quarters in the entire country this cycle, coming in only behind well-established candidates like Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Mary Peltola in Alaska, Alex Vindman in Florida and James Talarico in Texas,” the campaign said in its release.
According to the campaign, 63% of Hamilton’s donations came from Kansans, including donors from 93 of the state’s 105 counties. The median contribution was $25, the release said.
Hamilton’s hot fundraising start came after building anticipation for a campaign launch with a statewide listening tour where the founding pastor of the nation’s largest United Methodist church openly entertained running as an independent. The campaign reported raising $2 million in the first 15 days after Hamilton announced his intention to run as a Democrat.
Marshall, a loyal ally of President Donald Trump, has vowed to stay on the ballot, despite persistent rumors that he could be in line for an appointment within the administration.
In 2020, Marshall defeated Democratic nominee Barbara Bollier by more than 11 percentage points, despite being out fundraised by a margin of more than four to one. Bollier collected $29 million to Marshall’s nearly $6.8 million, FEC records show.
Bollier, a former state lawmaker who changed her party affiliation from Republican to Democrat in 2018, raised roughly $1.1 million in her campaign launch quarter. She later set a single-quarter Kansas fundraising record by collecting nearly $13.5 million in three months.
