How the Kansas Senate race became surprisingly competitive

Geoff Bennett:

President Trump is back on the campaign trail in the midst of a seven-day blitz that takes him to Greenville, North Carolina, this evening.

On Monday, the president rallied Republicans in Kansas, a state that has long been reliably red, but where this year's midterm elections are proving surprisingly competitive.

Our William Brangham has more.

William Brangham:

Last night in Wichita, the president sought to rally Republicans in Kansas to get out and vote. But his comments were often laced with ugly stereotypes. At one point, the present used an antisemitic slur while defending Republican Senator Roger Marshall.

Marshall used to be an OB-GYN and has come under fire for suing dozens of his former patients over unpaid medical debts.

President Donald Trump:

He was given a bum rap because he was mandated by law to request strongly money owed from patients. You're not allowed not to do it. You have to, by law, go after those people. And they made it like, oh, he was some kind of a shylock-type guy.

William Brangham:

The president also made misleading claims about immigrants in Kansas and about Marshall's Democratic challenger, Pastor Adam Hamilton.

President Donald Trump:

He supports flooding Kansas with unvetted refugees who go around killing people literally for no reason.

(BOOING)

President Donald Trump:

He used a lot of church money to fund all of this transgender crap that you're reading about, who openly mocks Jesus. He doesn't have our views, he doesn't have our values, and he happens to be, other than being a pastor -- he's a pastor, I guess, but he doesn't act like a pastor.

William Brangham:

So for more on this Senate race, we are joined by Jared Cerullo. He's a journalist with PBS Kansas and the host of the weekly current affairs show "Kansas Week."

Jared, thank you so much for being here.

Help us understand something. Why is this race so tight? I mean, Kansas is as reliably red state as they get. I don't think it's elected a Democrat to the Senate in something like 100 years. And yet here we have the president feeling the need to come and stump to support Senator Marshall.

How did it get so tight?

Jared Cerullo, PBS Kansas:

Yes, you said it.

A Democrat has not -- in many of our lifetimes has not been elected to this seat. So it seems obviously that Republicans are definitely feeling like they're in trouble. This race is so close because Adam Hamilton has been a viable candidate.

Many times, we have seen in this state candidates who, quite frankly, aren't viable because Kansas has always been a Republican lock, and they know they're not going to win. Things really started to go downhill for Roger Marshall last year out in Western Kansas in a small town called Oakley.

He held a town hall meeting and ended up walking out on that town hall meeting. There were several hundred people there, some of them protesters, and they started asking him challenging questions. And, by and large, they weren't demonstrating, they weren't protesting, but they were asking him challenging questions.

And Roger Marshall got visibly upset and ended up walking out on the town hall meeting. And this was early last year. Democrats obviously began hitting him very hard after that. The second thing Roger Marshall has been coming under attack for is the billing issue.

He -- as you mentioned, he used to be an OB-GYN in Great Bend, Kansas. And 81 people were sued by Roger Marshall for not paying their medical debts. And they weren't -- some of them even went to jail. And we're talking about low-income mothers, single mothers that went to jail because they ignored court orders. So that's ultimately why they went to jail.

And the last thing is, Roger Marshall has largely come under attack because Democrats have largely claimed and his opponents have largely claimed that he doesn't even live in Kansas. There have been widespread speculation that he lives in Florida. He had a vacation home in Florida.

He did finally start addressing that he does claim to live in Stafford, Kansas. He does have a mailing address there and claims that he has always lived in Kansas, but that's been widely disputed by his opponents.

William Brangham:

Kansas, as you well know, is a huge agricultural state, and the Iran war has driven up fertilizer prices, diesel prices. How much has that played into this race? I mean, that's got to be causing a lot of real pain for people there.

Jared Cerullo:

Oh, absolutely.

Western Kansas especially is very largely agricultural, small towns, many small town -- Dodge City and Garden City are out in Western Kansas, and they're about 20,000, 30,000, maybe 50,000 size population, and that's about as big as it gets. Everything else is very rural in far Western and North Central Kansas.

And many farmers -- and we see this in Adam Hamilton's ads -- many farmers are complaining that they are having a really hard time, harder times than what they are already facing, largely because of the fuel prices that have just skyrocketed.

And it was interesting at the rally, at the President Trump rally yesterday, just north of Wichita. Roger Marshall took the podium before and after Trump spoke, and he said multiple times that we're going to lower grocery prices, we're going to lower fuel prices. But he didn't give any direct plans on how he would do that. But he said, if you elect me, we're going to lower these prices.

The opponents may say, well, all of these prices have skyrocketed with Republicans in control. That's what they would say, I think.

William Brangham:

It's going to be an incredibly interesting race to watch.

Jared Cerullo of PBS Kansas, thank you so much for being here.

Jared Cerullo:

You're welcome.