Preview only: Kansas's own model is not built yet. The county groups, map, what-if scenarios and past-race numbers on this page are Texas's, used as stand-ins. The polls and results are Kansas's.
The forecast
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Numbers as a table
Things to know
The race in two minutes
Read by Maren Holt, Pollitrack's anchor · Recorded October 25
Read the transcript
I'm Maren Holt, and this is your Pollitrack digest on the Senate race in Kansas.
On November 3, Kansas decides who holds this seat for the next six years. Kansas rotates the order of names across groups of counties, so we list them alphabetically: Democrat Adam Hamilton, a United Methodist pastor from Leawood, and Republican Roger Marshall, the senator seeking a second term.
The polling average has Hamilton ahead by 1.4 points across five polls. Kansas polls have missed in both directions, so Pollitrack's forecast takes 1 point off. That leaves Hamilton ahead by 0.4, with a 53 percent chance of finishing first and Marshall at 47 percent.
That is about as close as a race gets. Either candidate could finish ahead.
Advance voting runs until noon on Monday, November second. So far, about 154 thousand Kansans have voted in advance. The state reports a statewide total only, so there is no county-by-county picture yet.
A big early vote does not tell us who is ahead. It tells us interest is high on both sides.
On election night, Pollitrack reads five bellwether counties, each standing in for a part of the state: Douglas, home to Lawrence, for the Kansas City suburbs; Leavenworth for Wichita, the exurbs and small-town Kansas; Lyon, home to Emporia, for Topeka and the central Kansas towns; Riley, home to Kansas State, for the college vote; and Wyandotte, Kansas City, Kansas, as a test of turnout.
Polls close at 7 pm Central in most of the state, an hour later in four western counties. As those counties report, the forecast stops leaning on polls and starts reading votes. Scroll down to explore each county, or switch to What-if mode and play out your own night. I'm Maren Holt. See you on election night.
The recording plays on the Pollitrack site. The transcript is above.
Early voting
How to read this: the line adds up early votes day by day, in person and by mail. The amber line is 2026; the gray lines are past years on the same day of early voting, so a 2026 line above them means more early votes than then. Refreshed every morning and afternoon from the Kansas Secretary of State's advance-voting dashboard.Numbers as a table
Numbers as a table
Cumulative early votes, in person and by mail, against the same day in 2022 and 2024.
In the news
How to read this: the headlines free news sources carry about this race, newest first, with who published each. The counts are how many stories named each candidate in the last seven days. Pollitrack reads the headlines; it does not judge them and they do not change the forecast.
The newest headlines about this race, refreshed twice a day.
This week: 31 stories name Hamilton, 61 name Marshall, 50 name both.
- Hamilton campaigns in Holton ahead of midterm election
- Hamilton Holds Healthcare Stocks As Senate Rival Marshall Pushes PBM Restrictions
- JD Vance is coming to Kansas to support Roger Marshall for the second time in 2 months
- Adam Hamilton best-suited to serve Kansas in U.S. Senate
- Adam Hamilton
- VOTERS GUIDE | Graham, Hamilton and Marshall vie for senator's seat
Five county groups
How to read this: every county joins the group whose bellwether county it has moved most like since 2016. The color is the group's margin in the view you pick: where its bellwether lands if the polls are right, its 2024 President result, or, on election night, how far each county has shifted since 2024. Darker means a bigger lead: 15 points or more, 5 to 15, or under 5. Tap a group or a county to light up its group.
Every county joins the bellwether it has voted most like since 2016.
Pick a group to light up its counties.
500 possible election nights
How to read this: the forecast is replayed 500 times, each with a different random draw of its uncertainty. Each dot is five possible nights, stacked by the statewide margin in 1-point steps: blue dots are Hamilton wins and red dots are Marshall wins. The more dots on one side of the tie line, the likelier that candidate wins.
The forecast replayed 500 times, with every county group free to miss.
Wins per 100 nights · each dot = 5 nights
The five bellwethers
How to read this: each row is one county, on a scale from a big Marshall lead (left) to a big Hamilton lead (right). The amber mark is the tie line: if every part of Kansas shifted as much as this county did, a result there would mean a statewide tie. A dot to the right of it is good news for Hamilton, and to the left for Marshall; the colored bar shows how far each county is from the tie line, and toward whom. The gray ticks are the 2024 and 2018 results. The dot is where the polling average points until results post, then the real result. Drag a dot, tap anywhere on a row, or use the arrow keys to try your own numbers; the dot clicks onto the marks when you get close.
Drag a dot, or pick a scenario, to see who wins Kansas.
Fine-tune the assumptions
County guides
Why each county was picked and what to watch.
Kansas City suburbs test
DouglasTie line: Hamilton +54.1 · Lawrence stands in for the Kansas City suburbs, 30% of the vote
- 2024 President
- Harris +38.0
- 2022 Senate
- Holland +35.9
- 2018 Governor
- Kelly +53.6
- Compared with Kansas
- 48–59 points more Democratic in every race since 2016
Why this county
Douglas County (Lawrence, home of the University of Kansas) leads a group of two: itself and Johnson County, the Kansas City suburbs, which casts about a quarter of the state's votes on its own. Together they cast 30.3% of the 2024 vote, and Harris won them by 12.8. Johnson is where Kansas has moved most: Trump won it by 2.6 in 2016, Harris by 8.5 in 2024, and Hamilton's church is there, in Leawood. Douglas has tracked the group's swing more closely in the six races the model was tested on, so it's the bellwether; Johnson is available as a stand-in.
What to look for
The tie line here is Hamilton +54: a result above it favors Hamilton, below it Marshall. Kelly won it by 53.6 in 2018, when she won the state by 5.1; Holland won it by 35.9 in 2022 and lost the state by 23. With the polls near even, the tie line is also about where Douglas should land if they're right. Johnson's tie line is Hamilton +24.6; Holland won it by 1.3 and Kelly by 20.2 in 2022.
When results come in
This page has no live Kansas feed, so set Douglas or Johnson in What-if mode to the margin the Secretary of State's site reports. Wait for most of the count: Johnson's first report is its advance votes alone, and they lean Democratic. In 2022 they went Holland +9.3 and the final count was Holland +1.3; in 2024 Harris led them by 12.6 and won the county by 8.5.
Signals so far
Kansas's advance-vote count is statewide only (154,074 by October 23), so there is no Douglas or Johnson number to read yet. For scale: in the 2022 Senate race Johnson cast 262,051 votes and Douglas 47,161, 31% of the state's between them.
Biggest vote source
LeavenworthTie line: Marshall +6.7 · stands in for Wichita, the exurbs and 58 more counties, 38% of the vote
- 2024 President
- Trump +22.8
- 2022 Senate
- Moran +26.5
- 2018 Governor
- Kobach +2.2
- Compared with Kansas
- 4–7 points more Republican in every race since 2016 except the 2016 Senate race
Why this county
Leavenworth County (Leavenworth and Fort Leavenworth, northwest of Kansas City) leads the largest group: 60 counties and 38.1% of the 2024 vote, which Trump won by 32.8. It holds Sedgwick (Wichita), Butler, Miami, Crawford (Pittsburg), Cowley, Franklin, Montgomery and Sumner, plus much of western Kansas. Every point of swing here is worth about four tenths of a point statewide. Leavenworth was picked because, with it, the five bellwethers together fit past statewide results best. Miami (0.7 points off on average) and Sedgwick (1.7) are available as stand-ins.
What to look for
The tie line here is Marshall +6.7: a wider Marshall margin favors Marshall, a narrower one Hamilton. Kobach won it by 2.2 in 2018, when Kelly won the state; Marshall won it by 17.0 in 2020 and Trump by 22.8 in 2024. Sedgwick's tie line is Hamilton +2.3: Kelly won it by 3.1 in 2022, while Trump won it by 13.8 in 2024.
When results come in
No live feed here, so enter the county's margin in What-if mode once most of it is counted. Sedgwick posts its advance votes first: in 2024 its second report had every advance precinct and no Election Day votes, Trump +9, and he won the county by 13.8. While this group's county has no count, the forecast's likely range is much wider.
Signals so far
No county count yet: the state's dashboard is statewide only. In the 2022 Senate race Leavenworth cast 26,857 votes and Sedgwick 154,117.
Small-city test
LyonTie line: Hamilton +1.4 · stands in for Topeka and central Kansas, a quarter of the vote
- 2024 President
- Trump +14.7
- 2022 Senate
- Moran +26.4
- 2018 Governor
- Kelly +16.1
- Compared with Kansas
- from 4 points more Republican to 11 more Democratic
Why this county
Lyon County (Emporia, home of Emporia State University) leads 40 counties that cast 25.3% of the 2024 vote, which Trump won by 31.9: Shawnee (Topeka), Reno (Hutchinson), Saline (Salina), Harvey, McPherson, Ellis (Hays), Finney (Garden City), Geary (Junction City) and Ford (Dodge City) among them. Lyon has swung harder than the state between governor and Senate races, the way its group has. Saline (1.2 points off on average) and McPherson (1.4) are available as stand-ins.
What to look for
The tie line here is Hamilton +1.4: a result above it favors Hamilton, below it Marshall. Kelly won it by 16.1 in 2018 and 9.6 in 2022; Marshall won it by 5.6 in 2020 and Moran by 26.4 in 2022. Shawnee's tie line is Hamilton +16.6. While Lyon has no count, the forecast's likely range is wider than for any other missing bellwether, so wait for it before trusting a call.
When results come in
No live feed here, so enter Lyon's margin in What-if mode once most of it is counted. Kansas reports advance and Election Day votes together in one county number, so an early count can overstate Hamilton until the precincts are in.
Signals so far
No county count yet: the state's dashboard is statewide only. In the 2022 Senate race Lyon cast 10,052 votes and Shawnee 65,636.
College-town test
RileyTie line: Hamilton +17.9 · Manhattan, a group of one
- 2024 President
- Harris +1.8
- 2022 Senate
- Moran +10.0
- 2018 Governor
- Kelly +24.0
- Compared with Kansas
- 13–20 points more Democratic since 2016, except the 2016 Senate race
Why this county
Riley County (Manhattan, home of Kansas State University, next to Fort Riley) is its own group, 1.8% of the 2024 vote, so each point there is worth only about 0.02 points statewide. No other county has moved quite like it, which is why it sharpened the backtests. It flipped from Trump +3.6 in 2016 to Harris +1.8 in 2024.
What to look for
The tie line here is Hamilton +18: a result above it favors Hamilton, below it Marshall. Kelly won it by 22.0 in 2022 and 24.0 in 2018; Moran won it by 10.0 in 2022. Read it with Douglas: if both college towns come in above their tie lines, Hamilton is likely ahead; if both come in below, Marshall is.
When results come in
No live feed here, so enter Riley's margin in What-if mode once most of it is counted.
Signals so far
No county count yet: the state's dashboard is statewide only. Riley cast 18,150 votes in the 2022 Senate race and 24,313 in 2024.
Turnout test
WyandotteTie line: Hamilton +40.0 · Kansas City, Kansas, where the Democratic margin has narrowed since 2020
- 2024 President
- Harris +23.9
- 2022 Senate
- Holland +24.6
- 2018 Governor
- Kelly +43.4
- Compared with Kansas
- 36–57 points more Democratic since 2016; 40 in 2024
Why this county
Wyandotte County (Kansas City, Kansas) is the most Democratic in the state and one of its most Hispanic and Black. Biden won it by 31.3 in 2020 and Harris by 23.9 in 2024, while the state moved only 1.5 points toward Trump. Its group is just Wyandotte and Cherokee County in the far southeast, whose lean has moved the same way; together they cast 4.5% of the 2024 vote.
What to look for
The tie line here is Hamilton +40: a result above it favors Hamilton, below it Marshall. Kelly won it by 43.4 in 2018 and 38.6 in 2022; Holland won it by 24.6. A result well above Harris's 23.9 puts Wyandotte nearer Kelly's margins; one near 23.9 leaves the gap to the tie line to be made up elsewhere, mostly in the suburbs.
When results come in
No live feed here, so enter Wyandotte's margin in What-if mode once most of it is counted. The county posts an "advance/early" update first, then Election Day precincts.
Signals so far
No county count yet: the state's dashboard is statewide only. Wyandotte's turnout fell from 57,071 votes in 2020 to 50,602 in 2024, and it cast 34,845 in the 2022 Senate race.
Timeline
When results usually arrive, Central time.
Advance voting. Counties could open in-person advance voting from October 14 and all must offer it from October 27; it ends at noon on Monday, November 2. As of October 23, 154,074 Kansans had voted (121,933 in person, 32,141 by mail) and 100,780 mail ballots had gone out, by the Secretary of State's statewide count; the tracker above follows it. Mail ballots postmarked by Election Day count if they arrive by Friday, November 6: a court has kept that three-day grace period in place for this election.
Polls close in 101 counties. Counties post to the Secretary of State's results site (ent.sos.ks.gov) county by county. That site turns automated readers away, so this page has no live Kansas feed tonight and its forecast stays on the polls. To try a county's real number, switch to What-if mode and set that bellwether to the margin the site or the news reports. Advance ballots usually come first: Johnson County's first report has been its advance votes alone.
The last four counties close. Sherman, Wallace, Greeley and Hamilton keep Mountain time, so their polls close an hour later. Early numbers lean Democratic: Johnson's advance votes went Holland +9.3 in 2022, and he finished Johnson at +1.3; Harris led its advance votes by 12.6 in 2024 and won the county by 8.5. Sedgwick's 2024 advance votes had Trump ahead by about 9; he won it by 13.8.
Election Day precincts. Kansas reports each county's count as one number, with no split between advance and Election Day votes, so a county's margin keeps moving toward Marshall as its precincts come in. Enter a bellwether in What-if mode only once its count is nearly complete. If the race is close, the big counties (Johnson, Sedgwick, Shawnee, Wyandotte) will decide when it can be called.
Late mail ballots and the county canvass. Mail ballots arriving by Friday, November 6 are added, and county boards decide provisional ballots at their canvass about two weeks after the election (Saline County's is Monday, November 16). A candidate can ask for a recount right after the canvass; Kansas has no automatic one. If the race is within a point when you go to bed, the forecast's likely range is the honest answer.
State certification. The State Board of Canvassers (the Secretary of State, governor and attorney general) certifies the result by December 1. The page doesn't model a recount.
Times are Central time. Counties post early votes first, then Election Day results. The method in six steps, then its track record on past races.
- All 105 counties are grouped by how they have moved relative to the statewide margin across eight statewide races (2016–2024). Each group is tied to one bellwether county.
- When a bellwether reports, its change from its 2024 President margin (Harris vs. Trump) is applied to every county in its group, and each group is weighted by its share of the vote.
- Early-vote readings are moved toward the expected final count. That uses only the 2026 Election Day tilt (Kansas doesn't publish past results split by vote type), scaled by how much is still uncounted. Counties not yet in borrow the average change of those that are, pulled slightly toward the polls.
- Uncertainty combines the minimum uncertainty, how much of each county is still uncounted, and which counties haven't reported. The win chance and the 500 simulated nights both come from that.
- Until results post, the forecast is the polling average minus an allowance for how Kansas polls have leaned (1 point off Hamilton unless you change it), with a 5-point spread, the typical size of a final Kansas poll-average miss since 2018. Where early votes are coming from trims nothing off it by default: each point the early electorate leans more Democratic than at the same point in 2024, measured by county, counts for the weight you set under "Fine-tune the assumptions", and in 2022 and 2024, measured against the election two years earlier, that lean did not predict how the polls missed. The five counties only start to matter on election night.
- Scheduled jobs in the cloud pull the Kansas Secretary of State's advance-voting dashboard and a Wikipedia poll table every morning and afternoon. Kansas's election-night results site turns automated readers away, so on election night this page follows the polls; What-if mode takes the bellwethers' margins from the results site or the news. They write to this page's data store, which updates open copies of the page without a reload.
Track record: past races predicted from these five counties alone
| Race predicted | Baseline race | Actual | Model | Miss |
|---|
These misses flatter the model. The five counties were picked by searching for the set that best fits these same six races. Tested on races it had not seen, the same search missed by about 1.3 points. Kansas also has no live results feed on this page: until one is added, it follows the polls on election night too.
What's different in 2026
The model is built on 2016–2024. Here is what could make this race break from those patterns, and how the model handles each.
| Factor | What it could do | How the model handles it |
|---|---|---|
| Marshall is the incumbent; Hamilton is a pastor running for office for the first time | Marshall won the seat in 2020 by 11.4 points and took 79.9% in the August 4 primary against Arch Naramore, who has since endorsed Hamilton. Hamilton, senior pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, won an 11-candidate Democratic primary with 34.6%. Through September 30, Hamilton had raised $13.5 million to Marshall's $7.0 million, and had $3.2 million in the bank to Marshall's $0.9 million. Forecasters rate the race a toss-up or Lean Republican. | Before results, the forecast starts from the polling average and takes 1 point off Hamilton off it. The starting point for every county is the 2024 presidential race (Trump +16.1), so each county's swing measures how much better or worse Hamilton runs than Harris did there. |
| Kansas elects Democratic governors but not senators | Kansas hasn't elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932. Laura Kelly won the governor's race by 5.1 in 2018 and 2.2 in 2022; in between, Marshall won by 11.4, and Moran won his 2022 Senate race by 23.0 on the same ballot as Kelly. | The bellwethers were picked using the 2018 and 2022 governor's races as well as presidential and Senate races, so counties that split their tickets before are already in the tie lines. The "2018 again" what-if shows Kelly's map. In What-if mode, enter Senate margins. |
| Polls and Kansas's record | The page's average of five polls had Hamilton ahead by 1.4 on October 22. Kansas is polled rarely: in 2022 and 2024 it had about one poll in the last three weeks of the race. | Kansas's final poll averages, taken the way this page takes them, missed Marshall by 7.2 points in 2020 and Trump by 2.5 the same year, but leaned Republican in the 2018 and 2022 governor's races, by 3.4 and 0.4. The 2022 Senate and 2024 presidential races had too few polls to count. Kansas's own average is 1.5 points; the default of 1 point is that average pooled with the other states' midterm-year misses. The spread around the polling average is 5 points, and the allowance is adjustable under "Fine-tune the assumptions." |
| Advance votes counted statewide only, with nothing to compare them to | As of October 23, 154,074 Kansans had voted, by the Secretary of State's statewide count. Its dashboard has no county or party breakdown, and no count from the same point of 2022 or 2024 has been found. | The tracker shows the statewide count by day. The forecast's early-vote adjustment needs county counts from the same point in an earlier year, so it is off in Kansas. |
| Advance votes versus Election Day votes | Kansas reports each county's count as one number, without splitting advance from Election Day votes, and advance votes come first and lean Democratic. Johnson's advance votes went Holland +9.3 in 2022, and he finished the county at +1.3. | There's no early-to-final adjustment, since the state publishes no record to set one from; the "How much more Republican Election Day votes will be" setting doesn't come into play. Enter a county in What-if mode only once most of its vote is counted. |
| No live results on this page | The Secretary of State's results site turns automated readers away, and it is overwritten by each election. One page there carries every county's count. | On election night the page stays on the polls. What-if mode lets you enter the bellwethers' margins from the results site or the news yourself. |
| A Libertarian on the ballot | David Graham, the Libertarian, also ran in 2022 and took 3.0%. | The forecast is the margin between Hamilton and Marshall as a share of all votes cast, so third-party votes need no separate adjustment. |
- County returns 2016–2024: Kansas Secretary of State precinct-level results, summed to the county, with OpenElections Kansas for the four big counties in 2016 and Wyandotte in 2018 (every race's statewide totals match the certified results)
- County boundaries: us-atlas (Census cartographic boundaries)
- Advance-vote turnout: the Kansas Secretary of State's advance-voting dashboard (statewide counts by day)
- Polling average: Wikipedia, 2026 United States Senate election in Kansas (poll table)
- Election-night results: Kansas Secretary of State election-night results (not read by this page)
- In the news: headlines and links from Google News, GDELT and the state's own news outlets, read twice a day. Pollitrack never fetches or stores the articles themselves.