Kansas Republicans have not lost a Senate race since 1932.
A pastor trying to break that streak once stood in his pulpit and called cattle a climate sin.
New polling now shows that sermon might be the reason Republicans could lose Kansas.
The Sermon That Started It All
Adam Hamilton spent 36 years building the largest United Methodist church in America before he ever thought about running for office.
Back in January 2020, he used that pulpit to deliver a sermon called "What would Jesus say about climate change?"
In it, Hamilton told his congregation that eating beef and driving gas-powered cars was a form of environmental wastefulness that required repentance.
"I'm calling us to repentance," Hamilton said, according to Fox News Digital, framing meat and mileage as a debt owed to generations not yet born.
That sermon sat quietly on YouTube for six years, in a state where cattle outnumber people two-to-one.
Then Hamilton decided to run for the Senate.
Vance Brought the Sermon to the Barbecue Capital of the World
Vice President JD Vance flew to Olathe this month and read Hamilton's own words back to a room full of Kansans.
At the Webco Manufacturing rally, Vance told the crowd Hamilton had preached that raising cattle and eating meat was a sin in a state built on barbecue.
Vance did not stop there, telling Kansans that Hamilton's church was funding causes most of the room would find offensive.
He summed up the whole record as "left-wing radicalism dressed in the skin suit of our religion."
Sen. Roger Marshall piled on too, arguing the sermon shows Hamilton would govern exactly like every other liberal Democrat already in the Senate.
Kansas Livestock Association CEO Matt Teagarden pushed back directly, noting cattle account for only 2 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Cattle farming and ranching also pump tens of billions of dollars into the Kansas economy and employ tens of thousands of Kansans.
A pastor lecturing Kansas about beef is like a Texan lecturing Saudi Arabia about oil.
The Polling Nobody in Topeka Wanted to See
Here is the part that should worry every Republican in the country.
An Emerson College Polling and Nexstar Media survey conducted September 15 and 16 found Hamilton leading Marshall 45 percent to 43 percent.
Independent voters are breaking for Hamilton by 15 points, 42 percent to 27 percent.
Cook Political Report has already downgraded the race from solid to lean Republican, and The Economist now rates it a flat-out toss-up.
Diesel prices tied to the fallout from the Iran conflict are squeezing farmers, and some of that frustration appears to be sloshing toward an incumbent who's held the seat since 2020.
None of that changes what Hamilton said from his own pulpit, on tape, in his own words.
What a Six-Year-Old Sermon Says About November
Here's what fires me up about this race: a six-year-old sermon telling Kansas cattlemen to feel guilty about beef isn't some ancient scandal Republicans dug up out of spite, it's a preview of what every blue-state climate agenda believes but rarely says out loud in a red state.
Kansas ranchers built an economy worth tens of billions of dollars, and the man asking to represent them in Washington once treated their life's work like an environmental confession booth.
That's the sermon Republicans need running on repeat between now and November 3, not quoted once at a single rally in Olathe.
Sources:
- Alex Miller, "Woke Megachurch Pastor, Dem Nominee Called on Congregation To Repent for Driving, Eating Beef," Fox News, September 28, 2026.
- "ICYMI: Vice President Vance Destroys Adam Hamilton's Views & Use of Church Funds for Dubious Groups," Kansans for Marshall, September 2026.
- "JD Vance Makes Campaign Stop In Deep-Red State Democrats Desperately Want," The Daily Wire, September 2026.
- "Kansas 2026: Hamilton and Marshall in Tight Senate Race; Masterson Leads for Governor," Emerson College Polling, September 18, 2026.
- Amy Curtis, "A New Ad From Kansas Democrat Adam Hamilton Deserves Three Pinocchios," Townhall, September 28, 2026.
