Do we like Adam Hamilton?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Solid record on LGBTQ+ inclusion and public life, held back by a disputed row over how his church handled youth-camp complaints and a thin political record.
Hamilton is the founding pastor of the Church of the Resurrection, which started in a funeral home chapel in 1990 and now has about 25,000 members at nine locations. He's written more than 30 books, mostly on Christian theology, and he's a fifth-generation Kansan. This year was his first run for office, and he ran as a centrist Democrat.
On the harm check, his record on LGBTQ+ people is good. In 2019 he backed a local-option plan to avoid a Methodist split, then hosted more than 600 Methodists after the Traditional Plan kept the bans, and committed to rejecting it. In 2024 he voted for the change that lifted the bans on LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex weddings. His church has a Queer Inclusive Collective and takes part in Pride events.
The Republican attacks on him were mostly about that inclusion. Marshall called him “too woke for Kansas” and blamed him for the Methodist split. A local fact-check found that most churches that left were conservative and that a fellow pastor said Hamilton had no outsized role. At a September rally Vice President JD Vance said church donations went to a Pride festival with drag performers. Hamilton called the comments a “false and sad attempt to distract from the real hardships facing Kansans.” Abuse aimed at queer people and their allies doesn't count against him.
The real stain is the abuse-handling story. Marshall's campaign ran an ad accusing Hamilton of protecting a church camp volunteer who was accused of molesting two teenagers in 2005. The Christian Post reported that church staff investigated, couldn't prove fault, and the volunteer returned as a counsellor in late 2006. The church reported the incidents to police, prosecutors declined to charge, and the church banned him after a 2006 report. Hamilton's campaign denied any cover-up, and Hamilton said he would “absolutely” handle 2005 differently, by calling police directly.
On wider politics he sells himself as an independent-minded moderate. He has said “If it's bad for Kansas, I'm a hard no,” and he supports cutting “waste, fraud and abuse” from Medicaid, though he's also criticised Republican cuts to Medicaid and food assistance. A Republican ad said he told his congregation to repent for eating beef. The AP found that the ad stitched two clips together misleadingly. Nothing turned up on immigration or climate in his own words, so that's a gap.
The good stuff is real, if mostly on the church side. He built a community institution from a small start and was named Johnson Countian of the Year in 2016. In the campaign he said he wasn't running “to make everybody in this country Christian or United Methodist”. That's the right instinct from a clergyman in politics.