By Stephen Koranda

Conservative Republican firebrand Kris Kobach may have lost the attorney general’s office as unofficial results show Democrat Chris Mann with a lead and Mann is declaring victory. However, the Associated Press has not called a winner in the race and outstanding ballots could decide the victor.

Those mailed ballots often lean more Democratic.

Mann is a former police officer who became a prosecutor after a drunk driver struck him during a traffic stop in 2002.

Kobach is well known and polarizing, which attracted a lot of attention to the race. In the last election, he narrowly beat Mann.

Mann outpaced Kobach in terms of fundraising. A large part of Kobach’s campaign centered on Kansas’ record-low crime rates under his leadership, but Mann earned the endorsement of the Kansas State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police. It was the first time the group endorsed the Democratic candidate since 2002.

“I’m proud to have earned the trust of so many Kansans,” Mann said in a statement declaring victory. “As Attorney General, I will show up for the people of Kansas every day, fighting to keep our communities safe and hold bad actors accountable.”

Kobach had not issued a statement on the race or made public comments about the results by early Wednesday morning.

Kobach’s national profile and media savvy were a target for Mann. Mann positioned himself as someone focused on the office and not theatrics.

The party that holds the White House often takes a hit in the midterm election, and sagging polling numbers for President Donald Trump had Democrats excited to take another swing at the office.

Mostly due to the unexpectedly tight Kansas U.S. Senate race, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance each visited the state twice.

Trump and Kobach are especially aligned on their concerns over alleged voter fraud. Trump appointed Kobach to a voter fraud commission during his first term.

When he visited the state recently, Trump brought Kobach on stage in Salina.

“Been my friend for so long,” Trump said as he called Kobach up to the stage. “I endorsed him. For years I’ve been endorsing him.”

Kobach previously pushed a law requiring Kansans to prove their citizenship to register to vote when he was secretary of state. That law was later blocked by the courts and his efforts to prove widespread voter fraud didn’t pan out.

Kobach touted his work as attorney general during the campaign, like challenges he brought against Biden-era laws. Including when he sued over the Title IX rule promising women the same educational opportunities as men that replaced “sex” with “gender.” He’s been a driving force behind the lawsuit against Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools for allegedly violating parents’ rights by allowing students to socially transition at school without their parents knowing.

Kobach teamed up with the U.S. Department of Justice on a legal challenge to end in-state tuition for non-citizens who grew up in Kansas.

Kobach held the office of secretary of state starting in 2011. In 2018 he ran for governor but lost to Democrat Laura Kelly. Then in 2022, he won the office of attorney general.

In fundraising, Mann had an advantage over Kobach as did other Democrats in major Kansas races.

Kobach also faced criticism twice for appearing to take donations that were higher than state limits. His campaign attributed some of them to married couples donating.

U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall officially lost his seat to the Rev. Adam Hamilton on Tuesday night as part of a resounding repudiation of Republicans across the United States.

But Marshall actually lost that seat 20 months ago, when he clashed with everyday Kansans at a March 1 town hall meeting in Oakley.

Facing tough questions from an audience fed up with President Donald Trump’s Department Of Government Efficiency, Marshall left the meeting early. For the rest of 2025 and all this year, he avoided further public events. Oh, he would show up for photo opportunities, but Marshall had apparently had it with his constituents. (Town halls, he claimed, could lead to violence.)

That wasn’t all, though. Marshall’s apparatchiks apparently felt the need to blame those who made their boss look bad.

His chief of staff Brent Robertson, blasted the following vitriolic statement:

“Democrat operatives who couldn’t place Oakley, Kansas on a map before today sabotaged a local town hall — even still, Senator Marshall stayed and answered every question that was asked for 45 minutes. Real Kansans overwhelmingly support President Trump’s DOGE initiative, shrinking the size of the federal government, and firing career bureaucrats. Local Oakley citizens had no clue who these people were and were embarrassed by the behavior. Senator Marshall is to be commended for staying as long as he did.”

“Real Kansans,” huh?

I think “real Kansans” had something to say on Tuesday to night to Marshall — and to Robertson, whom the senator still managed to thank in his deer-in-the-headlights concession speech.

That’s the kind of rhetoric made all too familiar by Trump and his Make America Great Again Acolytes. Marshall arrived in Washington, D.C., alongside Trump, and he seldom let a millimeter of daylight shine between him and the president.

That slavish devotion earned him favor. Not for nothing did Trump visit Kansas twice in recent weeks. Not for nothing did Vice President JD Vance make two stops of his own.

But this attachment to the man and his style left Marshall flat-footed when it came to actually interacting with — actually listening to — his constituents. Those who dared to question Republican policies were, as Robertson claimed, embarrassing. The real, true, conservative Kansans would support the senator no matter what.

Marshall genuinely seemed to be confused!

“I’ve never seen such hatred coming out of people’s mouths at President Trump and his agenda,” he said last year. “I don’t know why people are upset that the borders are safe and the price of gas and groceries are down and the economy’s looking better.”

He still seemed bewildered last night, admitting in his concession speech that “I don’t have any answers.”

Real Kansans had an answer. And that was voting for a new senator — one who might actually stop and listen.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. His first book, “Opinionated: Kansas Journalists Who Proved Why Commentary Matters — Then and Now,” was published in September 2026 by the University Press of Kansas. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

By Grace Hills

Kansans are sending Democrat Adam Hamilton to the U.S. Senate, the first time they’ve elected a Democrat to the chamber since 1932.

Hamilton, the pastor of the largest United Methodist church in the country with seven campuses across the Kansas City metro, preached a moderate approach, and emphasized listening to both sides.

“We are better together, Republicans and Democrats,” Hamilton told a crowd of supporters after the Associated Press called the race. “Thoughtful Republicans and thoughtful Democrats coming together to solve problems.”

President Trump won Kansas with a double-digit margin in each presidential election since 2016, and he made two visits to the state to support Marshall. Vice President JD Vance also arrived twice to rally for Marshall.

But even that full-court press wasn’t enough to overcome headwinds that Republicans faced in the midterm election.

Marshall called the defeat “humbling.”

“I don’t have any answers,” Marshall told a crowd in Wichita. “It’s been the great honor of my life to serve the state of Kansas for 10 years, and just love this state. Love this country.“

While Trump has easily won Kansas three times, Kansans also elected moderate Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly to the governor’s office, then reelected her in that same time period.

Kelly and Kathleen Sebelius, the Democratic governor elected before her, endorsed Hamilton — as did most living former governors except for Sam Brownback, who endorsed Marshall.

Prior Senate elections in the state were sleepier. Marshall coasted to Washington with a more than 11-percentage-point margin of victory in 2020, despite some predictions for a more competitive race.

The polls showed Hamilton being tied or slightly ahead of Marshall. Marshall frequently pointed to his 2020 race against Democrat Barbara Bollier, which flip-flopped between Marshall and Bollier winning, as a defense against the polls.

Both Hamilton and Bollier set fundraising records, but this year’s contest ended up being the most expensive in Kansas history, with Hamilton breaking multiple records.

Hamilton flirted with running as an independent, but decided to run as an “independent-minded Democrat” after his statewide listening tour. Supporters worried if he ran as an independent, he’d split the votes with the Democrat and ultimately send Marshall back to Washington.

Andi Welch, from Johnson County, Kansas, doesn’t always vote for the Democrat on the ballot, but she voted for Hamilton on Election Day.

“I think he’s going to be fair,” Welch said. “I think he’s running as a Democrat for the reasons he states, and I think he really is going to be looking out for Kansas citizens.”

Hamilton’s call for term limits, critiques of the national Democratic party and endorsements from prominent Kansas Republicans resonated with Kansans.

But the race also delved into personal attacks.

A major bombshell in the race was the New York Times reporting that Marshall, who worked as an OB-GYN before going to the U.S. House in 2016, sued 700 of his former patients for medical debt.

Marshall repeatedly redirected attention on the lawsuits to say he gave hundreds of patients free care, but the day before the election he produced a video — apparently without his top advisor’s support — addressing the lawsuits. He defended sending people to collections as a necessary part of business.

“We did have to keep the lights on,” Marshall said in the video.

Hamilton’s campaign used one of those former patients in an attack ad, and five days before Election Day that patient sued Marshall for allegedly charging a predatory interest rate.

Marshall’s campaign, for its part, bet heavily on an attack ad surrounding claims that Hamilton protected a pedophile. A church camp volunteer reportedly attempted to sexually abuse boys at one of Hamilton’s church camps, and returned the following year where he did so again.

Court records show the church’s initial investigation into the boys’ report was inconclusive, and Hamilton later said in a debate he was not involved in the decision to allow the volunteer to return. Church leaders called the authorities after the second report, but Hamilton said they should’ve called police after the first.

National Republicans also turned their focus to the state, betting that the remaining undecided voters — which made up about 8% of the electorate in September, according to an Emerson College poll — were Trump voters who just needed encouragement to get out and vote. The president and vice president each visited the state twice this election season.

Still, polls trended in Hamilton’s favor — Emmerson’s by a wider margin than before their visits.

Hamilton notably avoided association with national Democrats. Though his campaign took $5 million from a political action committee associated with U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Hamilton said he wouldn’t support Schumer in another leadership position.

In their final debate before Election Day, Marshall sought to tie Hamilton to Schumer 15 times.

Hamilton, meanwhile, leaned into a Kansas-first approach, a message that appealed to voters.

Grace Hills reports on politics for the Kansas News Service.

After one of the ugliest battles of the 2026 cycle, Democrat Dr. Amy Acton is projected to prevail over Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in her bid to be Ohio’s first woman elected governor, according to Decision Desk HQ.

For months, the contest between Acton, a former public health director for outgoing Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, and Ramaswamy, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur and failed GOP presidential candidate, was notably personal, with ads suggesting that Acton was a “drunk” and that Ramaswamy was a fraud consuming the Buckeye State’s commercial breaks. 

Then, in the closing weeks of the race, Ramaswamy upped the ante by airing an ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, suggesting that her daughter had lied about childhood sexual abuse and neglect. Court records confirm that Arthur lost custody of Acton and her younger brother in 1978 after her second husband, Cledith Arthur, was arrested, charged and indicted for raping then 12-year-old Acton. The Arthurs stayed together and fled the state.

The ad landed like a bomb in the race. Ohio Republicans largely denounced it but President Donald Trump praised it and Vice President JD Vance, an Ohioan, said Republican candidates needed to do whatever it took to win. DeWine, who endorsed Ramaswamy as his successor early in the race, called the ad “deeply troubling” and said it should be taken off the air. Trump likened it to “hitting pay dirt” and said other campaigns should use it as a model. Vance told Republicans upset about it to “stop whining.”

Paul Beck, a political scientist at The Ohio State University, predicted it would be a “turning point” in the race, telling The 19th that he “really felt, the first time I saw the ad, that Ramaswamy was digging his grave.” Beck also believed the ad could potentially have a negative impact on down-ballot Republican candidates in competitive races throughout the state.  

Though Ohio had not elected a Democrat to lead the state for 20 years, polls had for months shown Ramaswamy, who founded Roivant Sciences and initially co-led Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, trailing Acton, who led Ohio’s public health department in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Polls out the week after the ad was released showed that using Acton’s estranged mother against her likely only hurt Ramaswamy’s chances to close the gap. Though competitive statewide races often tighten in their closing days, a subsequent New York Times/Siena University poll conducted from October 26 to November 1 instead showed that Acton’s lead had grown to 6 points from 4 points the month before, with Ramaswamy losing support and more voters saying they did not know who they would back in the gubernatorial contest. 

Acton said during her final weekend of campaigning that she had received “such an incredible amount of love and support” since the ad aired, and that “many people have been coming up at the rallies, at the rope lines, sharing their stories.”

“I’ve always said that I am not the only one who has seen a thing or two in my childhood, and that’s why I do what I do,” Acton told reporters Friday. 

Acton was born and raised in Youngstown, a manufacturing area in the northeast corner of the state that fell on tough economic times after the collapse of the U.S. steel industry. She often said during campaign stops there and throughout the state that growing up, you were far more likely to know what union someone belonged to than their political party. Securing local union endorsements, particularly in the skilled trades and manufacturing areas, was a key part of Acton’s campaign strategy.

Acton graduated from Youngstown’s Liberty High School with honors and was homecoming queen her senior year. She worked her way through college, then medical school at Northeast Ohio Medical University, a joint program of three public universities in the state. She completed residencies in pediatrics and preventative medicine before earning a master’s degree in public health from Ohio State.

When DeWine named Acton his public health director in 2019, she became Ohio’s first woman in the role. A year later, in the early months of the pandemic, Acton was a fixture on Ohioans’ television screens during daily briefings alongside DeWine. The updates about reported cases and virus spread were similar to those conducted on a national level by Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The name recognition that Acton earned as public health director positioned her as one of the only Democrats with the potential to win a statewide gubernatorial contest. Ohio is an intensely gerrymandered state that favors Republicans; the Democratic Party’s pipeline of talent had all but dried up, and the party itself has struggled to raise money. Acton’s campaign repeatedly noted that it was trying to win in a state where Trump prevailed in 2024 by 11 points. At times, the campaign’s tactics intended to appeal to Republican crossover voters put them at odds with the Democratic base. 

Acton approached her time in the public health department as a positive, saying it had created an enduring bond with voters. Ramaswamy saw it as a negative that would energize his Republican base. In one campaign ad, Ramaswamy featured a longtime GOP activist who said she was unable to visit her mother at a nursing home during the pandemic, and that she died alone as a result. However, the mother’s obituary showed that she’d died at a hospice facility in Kentucky, not Ohio, more than two months after Ohio lifted its stay-at-home order and after Acton had resigned as health director. Further, DeWine said repeatedly during the contest that the calls to shutter schools and postpone a primary election were ultimately his.

One reason that the Acton-Ramaswamy contest remained so intensely personal from beginning to end is that both candidates offered little in terms of detailed policy. Though they staked out different positions on everything from reproductive rights to data centers to healthcare access, neither candidate faced a competitive primary that compelled them to outline their policies in detail. Neither served previously as a legislator with a voting record to scrutinize. Acton tightly controlled media access at her events and declined to debate Ramaswamy in the general election. Neither answered newspaper editorial board questions about policies like improving childcare affordability that they spoke about generally during campaign stops. 

So the ads that blanketed the battleground state were largely personal attacks. Acton suggested Ramaswamy is an out-of-touch billionaire and a biotech fraud. Ramaswamy and others in his orbit portrayed Acton as unfit to lead Ohio. The personal attacks culminated with Ramaswamy’s ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother.

James Talarico will be the first Democrat to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate since 1994, Decision Desk HQ projects — a stunning upset in a race that hinged on conversations about masculinity and anti-transgender attacks.

Talarico, a seminarian and representative in the Texas legislature, defeated Attorney General Ken Paxton, a hardline conservative endorsed by President Donald Trump who is known as one of the anti-abortion movement’s staunchest warriors.

In what became the most expensive Senate race in state history, Paxton attacked Talarico on questions of manliness, characterizing the Democrat as “low-T” — a reference to testosterone levels that influencers in the manosphere often use. 

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a top adviser to Trump, called Talarico the “first transgender Senate candidate.” Talarico is cisgender and in a relationship with a woman. Republicans also falsely accused Talarico of being vegan, a notion that manosphere commentators argue can make someone less of a man.

Paxton’s campaign also focused on Talarico’s previous support of transgender rights, including through an array of AI-generated ads broadcast across the state and highlighting a 2021 remark in which he said, “God is nonbinary.” 

During the campaign, Talarico walked back his previous support of trans people participating in sports,  telling Fox News he would oppose allowing transgender student-athletes to participate in girls’ sports if “it endangers safety or fairness.” He also softened his support of keeping healthcare available for trans minors, telling Fox News he would vote for a national law banning gender-affirming surgeries for kids, which are rarely performed. 

Though Talarico focused his campaign on questions of costs and corruption, the Democrat leveraged his religious background when talking about issues such as LGBTQ+ rights and abortion. 

“We’re both Christians, and the Bible is silent on the issue of abortion. It means you and I both have to look at different scriptures to try to come to a conclusion,” Talarico said at an October CNN event. “But what I think we can do is actually come together on reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies and the number of abortions. Because if we treat this issue as a public health problem and not a culture war problem, then we can actually make progress together.”

In the final weeks of the campaign, Paxton’s campaign was heavily financed by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who spent almost $200 million in an attempt to secure a Republican victory.