Two New Kansas Senate Polls and the Betting Market’s Reaction

More things are looking favorable for Democrats as final polls arrive ahead of election day.

Kansas Poll Synopsis

• Emerson College Kansas Senate: D+2
• Washington Post Kansas Senate: D+10
• Washington Post Kansas Governor: D+6
• Emerson College Kansas Governor: R+5

Someone is going to be wildly off here, perhaps every poll above.

Emerson College Polls

Link to Poll: The final Emerson College Polling survey of Kansas voters finds 49% of voters support Democrat Adam Hamilton and 45% Republican incumbent Roger Marshall for U.S. Senate. Three percent support the Libertarian candidate David Graham, and 3% are undecided. When undecideds are asked who they lean toward, Hamilton’s overall support increases to 50% and Marshall 47%. Since September, Hamilton gained four points, from 45% to 49%, and Marshall gained two points, from 43% to 45%.

“Notably, the difference in support between Hamilton and Marshall is the same as support for the Libertarian candidate, Graham, on the ballot,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said.

“Independents break for Hamilton, 59% to 25%, a 17-point increase in support for Hamilton among this group since last month.”

In the race for Governor, 50% support Republican Ty Masterson, and 46% support Democrat Cindy Holscher. Four percent are undecided. When undecided voters are asked whom they lean toward, Masterson’s support increases to 53%, and Holscher 48%.

Those who already voted break for Hamilton, 66% to 32%, while those who have yet to vote support Marshall 48% to 45%. Early voters similarly break for Holscher, 65% to 35%, while those who haven’t voted yet break for Masterson by a larger margin, 53% to 43%.

WAPO – George Mason Poll

Link to Poll: Note: This poll experienced significantly higher cooperation rates among registered Democrats than Republicans and additional signs of nonresponse error. See additional detail at wapo.st/pollarchive.

Well, I certainly believe that note. I also believe the aggregate betting market response.

WAPO – George Mason Cooperation Rates

The Washington Post comments We polled Kansas. Democrats wanted to talk. Republicans, not so much.

The Washington Post and George Mason University began contacting voters last week in one of the country’s most competitive but least-polled Senate contests: the race in Kansas between Republican Sen. Roger Marshall and megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton, who is trying to become the first Democratic senator from the state since the Great Depression.

After more than 85,000 phone calls and nearly 50,000 text messages, a potential problem emerged.

Democrats were far more enthusiastic about taking the poll than Republicans were. Registered Democrats were more than twice as likely as registered Republicans to complete the survey after answering an interviewer’s call — 32 percent versus 12 percent — with a similar partisan gap when texting voters to complete the survey online.

This was a supersize version of a concern that has vexed pollsters for the last decade.

Partisan differences in answering polls are common, but not of this size. Similar polls of Michigan and Maine voters this fall found that cooperation rates among Democratic and Republican voters differed by less than four percentage points.

The Kansas poll was designed to minimize this disparity.

We drafted a shorter-than-usual questionnaire and conducted more than 8 in 10 interviews using live operators, who are more effective at contacting hard-to-reach voters.

Given these patterns, there’s good reason to suspect that the poll overestimates Democratic candidates’ support. But The Post is publishing results in the interest of transparency and to highlight the challenges the poll faced.

In the U.S. Senate race, the Post-Schar School poll of 801 likely voters shows Hamilton leading Marshall 52 percent to 43 percent, with an additional 4 percent supporting Libertarian David Graham. However, the 3.9 percentage-point margin of error that applies to each candidate suggests a wide range of possibilities. Statistically, Marshall could be as high as 47 percent and Hamilton as low as 48 percent under traditional assumptions. The poll finds a narrower margin when asking which party voters want to control the U.S. Senate next year, with 51 percent favoring Democrats and 48 percent favoring Republicans.

But the nine-point Democratic advantage in the Senate race is a clear outlier from the other nine polls released since mid-September, which range from a five-point lead in polling sponsored by Hamilton’s campaign to a one-point edge for Marshall. A CNN-SSRS poll released Thursday found “no clear leader” with Hamilton at 49 percent and Marshall at 45 percent. All other polls show the candidates’ support within the range of sampling error.

Post reporter Teo Armus spent three days earlier this month in Salina, Kansas. Among more than two dozen voters he interviewed were MAGA loyalists supporting the incumbent, Democrats rallying behind Hamilton, and anti-Trump Republicans who were backing the Democrat, too.

Many of the Hamilton supporters insisted that some Republicans who voted for Trump two years ago would quietly cast their ballots for Hamilton or sit out the Senate election entirely, in part because of frustration over tariffs or rising diesel, fuel and fertilizer prices affecting the area, which depends on agriculture. But none of them could point to someone who was open about such a view.

“There is a heavy reluctance for people to speak openly about what they believe,” said Linda Salem, 62, an independent who hosted a fundraiser in Salina for Hamilton and said about a third of those at the event were registered Republicans.

But some change was noticeable.

“There was a time when everywhere you’d go you’d see pick-up trucks with the American flag proudly in the back and MAGA signs all over,” she said. “You don’t see that anymore.”

The Post-Schar School poll echoes warning signs for Republicans in other Kansas polling. A 58 percent majority of Kansas likely voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance, only slightly higher than the 53-57 percent disapproval in other recent polls.

But the new survey shows larger defections from the president’s basethan other polls show, with 26 percent of likely voters who voted for him in 2024 now disapproving of his performance and a similar share of Trump voters supporting either Hamilton (18 percent) or Graham (5 percent) for Senate. Meanwhile, almost all Harris voters support Hamilton, as well as 71 percent of likely voters who didn’t vote in 2024.

Polling methods are changing to adapt to new challenges
The problems encountered in the Post-Schar School Kansas poll reflect growing challenges for election polls in recent years.

Survey response rates have plunged in recent decades, but low response rates themselves don’t cause polls to misfire. The problem comes when some groups respond more, such as Democrats or older people, and others, like Republicans or certain minority groups, respond less.

Polls underestimated Trump’s support by three to five percentage points in 2016, 2020 and 2024. At the same time, polls did not consistently overestimate Republican support in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections.

After 2020, many polls, including The Post’s, adopted additional methods to guard against the threat of nonresponse bias, leveraging voter files with extensive information on past turnout and demographics to help ensure more representative samples. Polls also began weighting samples based on which candidate voters supported in the previous presidential election. Studies found this was effective in reducing errors in 2024, although polls still underestimated Trump’s support.

The methods used in the Post-Schar School poll proved fairly accurate in 2024, with an average error of 2.2 percentage points, while the partnership’s Virginia polls accurately showed Democrat Abigail Spanberger’s double-digit advantage in the 2025 gubernatorial election and the narrow passage of Democrats’ redistricting referendum this spring. This year’s midterm elections provide another important test, with post-election analysis pointing to ways they can be improved.

“The partisan enthusiasm gap likely explains the disconnect between Democratic and Republican willingness to respond,” said Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, which co-sponsored the poll. “With an unpopular president, inflation, a war that Trump voters never asked for, the lack of GOP enthusiasm is not surprising. Are Republican voters this late in the election cycle feeling so down about their party’s chances that they just don’t want to talk about it?”

Question of the Day

I commend WAPO for posting the poll instead of just tossing it.

But one has to wonder why Emerson did did not experience the same difficulty. Or did they, then smooth it over accounting for the bias as best they could?

My suspicion is that we have seen a lot of smoothing by pollsters to avoid a 2016 or 2020 repeat.

If so, the polls may be significantly underweight as opposed overweight Democrats.

That will show up when less than enthused Republicans simply fail to show up on election day, but motivated Democrats do.

In case you missed it, here is the key Kansas takeaway.

“Notably, the difference in support between Hamilton and Marshall is the same as support for the Libertarian candidate, Graham, on the ballot,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said.

Hamilton does not need 50 percent to win, just more than a pretty unpopular Hamilton in a farm state very angry at things Trump has done.

Believable Market Reaction

The betting markets handled this perfectly. Democrat odds rose 4-5 percentage points from yesterday in a trend that started at the beginning of October.

Regarding the gubernatorial race, Kalshi still has Kansas Governor as Republican 72 percent. Polymarket also has Kansas Governor at 72 percent. Neither reacted much today.

Cook Political Assessment

Cook political caught up to what I have been saying for a month. Here’s today’s comment.

We believe that Kansas is more likely to flip than Iowa, and so do most Republicans we’ve talked to. Sen. Roger Marshall has run one of the worst campaigns this cycle, with national Republicans rushing in at the end to try to bail him out. Enter Rev. Adam Hamilton, who many Republicans believe is one of Democrats’ best candidates this cycle. Add in a worsening environment for the GOP and a hard-hit agriculture industry, and we wouldn’t be shocked to see a Democratic upset here on election night — even in a state that voted for Trump by 16 points and hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. Marshall would have no one but himself to blame, and Hamilton has the momentum at the end. Rating: Toss Up

Both Democrats and Republicans privately believe that if only one GOP candidate in our Toss Up states hangs on, it will be Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson over Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek. The key here may be Democratic state Auditor Rob Sand’s margin of victory in the governor’s race and if it’s enough to pull Turek, a former paralympian, over the finish line. Hinson has shown herself to be a talented communicator who deftly distanced herself from some of Trump’s most unpopular policies, but the president is still deeply underwater in the state. Private and public polls show the race is a dead heat, with each side believing their candidate is up, but within the margin of error. Rating: Toss Up

Cook Political’s Iowa comment is also one I made a month ago.

“The key here may be Democratic state Auditor Rob Sand’s margin of victory in the governor’s race and if it’s enough to pull Turek, a former paralympian, over the finish line.”

I am tilt Democrat on Kansas, essentially unchanged from my position on October 5.

And I remain a genuine tossup on Iowa Senate.

Please recall my October 5, 2026 post: If the Polls Are Correct, Democrats Will Win the Kansas Senate Race

A major upset is in play.

Hamilton Is a Unique Candidate.

Adam Hamilton is the senior pastor of the Resurrection, a United Methodist Church, the largest United Methodist congregation in the United States, with multiple locations in the Greater Kansas City area.

Mish’s Four-Point Take

• Hamilton is a popular minister and a moderate.
• Democrats could not possibly have picked a stronger candidate.
• Trump’s policies are extremely unpopular in farm states.
• Marshall is viewed as too supportive of Trump.

I am calling this a tossup, for now.

Unlike others who call 40.1 to 59.9 percent a tossup, I mean a range of 48-52. Forced further, I will take Hamilton as the 52.

On October 5, Polymarket was 33 percent on Hamilton and Kalshi was 35.5 percent. I stuck my neck out and called tossup. More specifically, I said “I will take Hamilton as the 52.“

Although my assessment did not change much today (call it 55 percent instead of 52 percent), the confidence in my Kansas assessment (and that of the Senate overall) did improve.

It’s increasingly difficult to believe an environment in which Kansas is a tossup, Iowa is a tossup, North Carolina a near lock, with Alaska, Ohio, and Texas at least slightly odds on, in which Democrats do not win the Senate.

It’s not impossible, just unlikely.

But literally everything from here on out, in states that are not all strongly correlated, for Democrats not to win the Senate.

Surprise, Surprise! The Polls Catch Up with the Betting Markets Today

Believe what you want, but I am aligned with the betting markets which are now aligned with the polls.

For more discussion, please see Surprise, Surprise! The Polls Catch Up with the Betting Markets Today