2026-09-23T20:50:13.874Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
堪萨斯州奥拉西——
亚当·汉密尔顿正呼吁堪萨斯州民众拿出信心，做出一项94年来从未有过的举动：将一名民主党人选入美国参议院。
他已经引起了共和党人的关注，成为他们保住参议院多数党地位的最新烦心事。
在白宫椭圆形办公室，唐纳德·特朗普总统称汉密尔顿是“激进左翼疯子”。副总统JD·万斯上周专程前往该州，为共和党参议员罗杰·马歇尔助选，并试图抹黑汉密尔顿。汉密尔顿是美国最大联合卫理公会教堂的牧师，他的民主党参选资格在不断扩大的参议院战场地图上成了新的未知变量。
“我的第一反应是，哇，他们肯定怕极了，”汉密尔顿在一次采访中表示，“他们把这个国家第二有权势的人派到堪萨斯州奥拉西来攻击我。”
距离中期选举投票仅剩不到六周时间，共和党人正加紧在深红州捍卫参议院席位，因为越来越多本党候选人试图摆脱伊朗战争、创纪录高位的柴油价格以及经济萎靡情绪带来的政治负面影响——这种情绪已将特朗普的支持率推至历史新低。
堪萨斯州只是最新一例，共和党人对这场选举感到警惕。
“即便在堪萨斯州，如今也有不少人不太待见唐纳德·特朗普，”威奇托市塞奇威克县委员会共和党委员吉姆·豪厄尔说道，“要是总统能尽量别再让我们今天、这周、这个月难堪，那就算是往好的方向迈出一步了。”
同样将在11月参选的豪厄尔表示，特朗普的一些行动造成了“附带损害”，激起了渴望变革的选民的不满。他支持马歇尔，但被问及汉密尔顿带来的挑战时，他说：“局势紧张得让人不安。”
汉密尔顿是第五代堪萨斯人，这是他首次参选公职。尽管他已暂停了在堪萨斯城郊区复活教堂的每周布道，但他的竞选演讲中穿插着圣经经文，其中包括《弥迦书》6章8节，呼吁信徒“要行公平”、“在神和众人面前谦卑地行走”。
“你甚至不必信教，也该知道做人应当如此，”62岁的汉密尔顿本周在劳伦斯对一群支持者说，“但这正是我们在华盛顿看不到的。”
今年早些时候宣布参选参议员之前，他开启了为期18站的倾听之旅，最初计划以独立人士身份参选。当时他对特朗普的言行以及国会未能捍卫宪法感到失望。他表示，自己逐渐意识到，以独立人士身份参选只会分化寻求变革的群体。
“这无关共和党还是民主党，”汉密尔顿说，“这关乎人性体面。”
然而在这个两年前特朗普以16个百分点优势获胜的堪萨斯州，汉密尔顿深知，若不争取到一部分共和党人加入民主党和无党派人士组成的联盟，他就不可能成功。
他已经吸引了包括前州长比尔·格雷夫斯在内的多名共和党知名人士支持他的竞选，他希望此举能为其他人效仿创造“许可结构”。
“亚当·汉密尔顿让人耳目一新，”格雷夫斯告诉CNN，“我的目的是向共和党人和无党派选民伸出援手，让他们知道在我们州，跨越党派界限是没问题的。在这场参议院选举中投票给民主党人是可以的。”
前民主党州长凯瑟琳·西贝利厄斯曾在堪萨斯州四次赢得全州性选举，之后在巴拉克·奥巴马总统政府中担任卫生与公众服务部长。她表示，扭转民主党形象“一直是一项挑战”。但她表示，汉密尔顿作为首次参选的候选人，不受“某种党派意识形态”束缚，这对他有利。
“我们堪萨斯人相信奇迹，”西贝利厄斯说，“所以亚当是打破参议院诅咒的完美人选。”
汉密尔顿认为，关键挑战不仅是说服足够多的选民支持他，还要让足够多的共和党人摆脱“助力民主党可能拿下多数席位”的思维定式。他多次承诺不会支持查克·舒默担任参议院领袖，称是时候注入新鲜血液了，并辩称他的席位很可能不会成为“决定多数席位归属的关键一票”。
“如果民主党最终能拿下多数席位，不管我是否当选，都有可能发生，”汉密尔顿对一群选民说，“难道你们不更愿意让一位温和派民主党人在那里为你们的利益奔走吗？”
史蒂夫·埃吉诺伊尔是一位终身共和党人，也是汉密尔顿所在教堂的长期好友和成员。他表示，随着中期选举竞选最后几周参议院席位争夺愈演愈烈，许多共和党人都在权衡这一考量。
“尽管他们当然希望亚当成为参议员，但他们同样担心，如果堪萨斯州在选举中变成摇摆州，他们更希望约翰·图恩担任参议院领袖，而不是查克·舒默——顺便说一句，我也是这么想的，”埃吉诺伊尔说，“但我更希望亚当·汉密尔顿做我的参议员。”
马歇尔是一名医生，在2020年当选参议员之前，已在众议院任职两届。他是最近开始与特朗普政府部分政策保持距离的共和党在任议员之一。
本月早些时候在堪萨斯州州集市的辩论中，马歇尔谈及汽油价格和伊朗战争时遭到了人群的起哄和嘲讽。在特朗普威胁要禁止加拿大庞巴迪喷气式制造商的产品销售后，他陷入了更激烈的争执——庞巴迪在威奇托雇佣了1200多名员工。
“再也不要在美国销售庞巴迪的产品了，”特朗普在真相社交平台上发帖，升级了与加拿大的贸易战，“他们的产品不够好。”
马歇尔认为总统的想法有误，并誓言为堪萨斯州的工人争取权益，他说：“我将努力保住庞巴迪在堪萨斯州的1200多个工作岗位。我已经将这一关切带到了椭圆形办公室。”
在与堪萨斯州各地共和党选民和党内官员的交谈中，这一事件被视为典型例证，表明人们认为特朗普为该州的共和党候选人制造了不必要的麻烦，也为汉密尔顿和其他呼吁变革的候选人创造了机会。
“老实说，我从心底里感到不安，”塞奇威克县的共和党县委员豪厄尔说，“这些是美国的工作岗位，就在堪萨斯州威奇托。仅凭一句评论就打压一个行业，未免太鲁莽了。”
堪萨斯州共和党主席达内德里·赫伯特承认，经济逆风一直是执政党面临的挑战。但她表示，在选举周期的这个阶段出现势均力敌的竞选并非完全罕见。
“我们可能是煤矿里的金丝雀，”赫伯特说，她补充道，共和党人需要密切关注并积极参与11月的选举，“每个人都应该记住，中期选举确实很重要，哪怕你不是在选举总统。”
在竞选的最后几周，马歇尔和共和党团体试图抹黑汉密尔顿，广告将他描述为“觉醒的大型教堂CEO”和“对堪萨斯州来说过于激进”。他们试图利用他的宗教身份攻击他，万斯也强化了这一论调，称：“这家伙利用布道坛不是为了鼓舞民众。这家伙利用布道坛不是为了侍奉主，也不是为了服务他的会众。”
在奥拉西的竞选活动办公室接受采访时，被问及这些批评时，汉密尔顿从后裤兜里掏出一本小型圣经。
“攻击我的信仰，真的吗？”汉密尔顿谈及万斯和其他批评者时说，“我很乐意和你们一起谈谈我们的信仰，谈谈我如何践行我的信仰，以及你们如何践行你们的信仰。”
在竞选活动中，汉密尔顿也明确表示，他坚定支持政教分离——这是多名选民在交谈中提出的问题。
“我不会去华盛顿特区担任参议院牧师，那里已经有一位了，”汉密尔顿说，“我去华盛顿特区是为了捍卫宪法，因为目前宪法正受到所发生事件的冲击。”
Kansas becomes the latest headache for Republicans, with Democrats eyeing a ‘miracle’ in Senate race
2026-09-23T20:50:13.874Z / CNN
Olathe, Kansas—
Adam Hamilton is asking Kansans to take a leap of faith and do something that hasn’t been done in 94 years: send a Democrat to the US Senate.
He’s captured the attention of Republicans, becoming the latest headache in their quest to maintain their Senate majority.
From the Oval Office, President Donald Trump called Hamilton a “radical left lunatic.” Vice President JD Vance traveled here last week to boost GOP Sen. Roger Marshall and try to tarnish the shine of Hamilton, the pastor of the nation’s largest United Methodist Church whose Democratic candidacy is a new wildcard in the widening Senate battleground map.
“My first thought was, wow, they must be really afraid,” Hamilton said in an interview. “They sent the second most powerful man in the country to Olathe, Kansas, to attack me.”
Less than six weeks before the voting ends in the midterm elections, Republicans are racing to defend Senate seats in deep-red territory, as a growing number of the party’s candidates try to inoculate themselves from political fallout from the Iran war, record-high diesel prices and a sense of economic malaise that has driven Trump’s approval ratings to all-time lows.
Kansas is only the latest example, with Republicans expressing alarm about the race.
“Even in Kansas, some people are not really super big fans of Donald Trump right now,” said Jim Howell, a Republican member of the Sedgwick County Commission in Wichita. “If the president would be so kind as to not give us anything to cringe over today or this week or this month, that would be a step in the right direction.”
Howell, who is also on the November ballot, said some of Trump’s actions have created “collateral damage” and stirred frustration among voters eager for change. He supports Marshall, but when asked about the challenge from Hamilton, he said: “It’s uncomfortably close.”
Hamilton, a fifth-generation Kansan, is making his first bid for elected office. While he has temporarily stopped his weekly sermons at Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City suburbs, his campaign speeches are sprinkled with Bible verses, including Micah 6:8, which calls on believers “to do justice” and “walk humbly before God and others.”
“You don’t even have to be religious to know that you should be living this way,” Hamilton, 62, told a crowd of supporters this week in Lawrence. “But it’s not what we’re seeing in Washington.”
When he embarked on an 18-stop listening tour earlier this year before announcing his Senate bid, his initial plan was to run as an independent. He was he was frustrated by Trump’s conduct and a failure of Congress to defend the Constitution. He said he became convinced an independent candidacy would simply divide those seeking change.
“This is not a Republican or Democrat thing,” Hamilton said. “It’s a human decency thing.”
Yet here in Kansas, where Trump won by 16 points two years ago, Hamilton knows he can’t be successful without winning over a share of Republicans to join a coalition of Democrats and independents.
He has attracted several prominent Republicans to his campaign, including former Gov. Bill Graves, which he hopes creates a permission structure for others to follow suit.
“Adam Hamilton is a breath of fresh air,” Graves told CNN. “My point is to reach out to Republicans and unaffiliated voters and make sure they know in our state it’s OK to cross party lines. It’s okay to vote Democrat in this Senate race.”
Former Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who won statewide elections four times in Kansas before serving as health and human services secretary in President Barack Obama’s administration, said overcoming the party’s brand “was always a challenge.” But she said Hamilton benefitted from being a first-time candidate not beholden to “some party ideology.”
“We believe in miracles in Kansas,” Sebelius said, “so Adam is the perfect guy to break this Senate curse.”
Hamilton believes a key challenge is not only convincing enough voters to support him but getting enough Republicans over the mindset of contributing to a potential Democratic majority. He has repeatedly pledged to not support Sen. Chuck Schumer as leader, saying it was time for new blood, and argued his seat would likely not be the “majority-maker.”
“If there’s going to be a Democratic majority, it may very well happen if I’m elected or not,” Hamilton told a group of voters. “Wouldn’t you rather have a moderate Democrat in there working on your behalf?”
Steve Eginoire, a lifelong Republican and longtime friend and member of Hamilton’s church, said he believes many Republicans are weighing that calculation as the fight for a Senate majority intensifies in the final weeks of the midterm election campaign.
“While they would love to see Adam as the senator, they’re equally concerned if Kansas becomes a swing state in the election, they’d rather have John Thune as the leader of the Senate rather than Chuck Schumer, which, by the way, so would I,” Eginoire said. “But I’d rather have Adam Hamilton as my senator.”
Marshall, a doctor who served two terms in the House before being elected to the Senate in 2020, is among the Republican incumbents who have recently began distancing themselves from some policies of the Trump administration.
At a Kansas State Fair debate earlier this month, Marshall was heckled and jeered by a crowd when he talked about gas prices and the Iran war. He was drawn into an even more contentious fray after Trump threatened to ban sales from Bombardier, a Canadian jet manufacturer, which employs more than 1,200 people in Wichita.
“No more selling Bombardier in the United States,” Trump posted on Truth Social as he escalated his trade war with Canada. “Their products aren’t good enough.”
Marshall suggested the president was misguided and vowed to fight for Kansas workers, saying: “I’m going to fight to keep Bombardier’s over 1,200 Kansas jobs. I’ve already taken that concern inside the Oval Office.”
In conversations with Republican voters and party officials across Kansas, this episode is a leading example of how people believe Trump has created an unnecessary problem for GOP candidates in the state and an opening for Hamilton and other candidates rallying for change.
“I was bothered to my core, honestly,” said Howell, the Republican county commissioner in Sedgwick County. “These are American jobs, right here in Wichita, Kansas. To tear down an industry based on a comment like that, it’s kind of reckless.”
Danedri Herbert, chairwoman of the Kansas Republican Party, acknowledged that economic headwinds were always a challenge for the party in power. But she said close races at this stage of an election cycle were not entirely unusual before.
“We could be a canary in the coal mine,” Herbert said, adding that Republicans needed to pay close attention and be engaged in the November election. “Everyone can use a reminder that midterm elections really matter, even if you’re not electing a president.”
In the closing weeks of the race, Marshall and Republican groups are trying to define Hamilton, with ads describing him as “a woke megachurch CEO” and “too liberal for Kansas.” They are trying to use his religious credentials against him, an argument Vance amplified, saying: “This guy is a guy who uses his pulpit not to lift people up. This is a guy who uses his pulpit not to serve the Lord or to serve his congregants.”
In an interview at a campaign field office in Olathe, Hamilton pulled a small Bible from his back pocket when asked about the criticism.
“Attacking my faith, really?” Hamilton said of Vance and other critics. “I’d love to talk together about our faith and talk about how I live my faith out and how you live your faith out.”
At his campaign stops, Hamilton also makes clear that he believes deeply in the separation of church and state, a question that several voters raised during conversations.
“I’m not going to Washington, DC, to be the chaplain of the Senate. They have one of those already,” Hamilton said. “I’m going to Washington, DC, to fight for the Constitution because it’s under assault right now by what’s happening.”
