A Republican who challenged Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., in a primary earlier this year is now backing the senator’s Democratic opponent.
Arch Naramore announced Thursday that he is endorsing Democrat Adam Hamilton, who is looking to unseat Marshall in the Senate this November.
In a YouTube video, Naramore said he has “always” been a Republican. Even so, he threw his support behind Hamilton in the race against the first-term senator.
Marshall comfortably beat Naramore in the August primary. Still, Naramore pulled in more than 20% of the vote, a point he highlighted in his endorsement video. He said a “lot of Republicans agreed” with him that “somebody” needed to take on Marshall.
Naramore went after the senator’s record, pointing to trade policy and tax breaks.
“Roger Marshall went along with tariffs that hurt Kansas farmers. He voted to give billions of dollars in tax breaks to data centers,” he said.
The Hill reported that it reached out to a spokesperson for the Marshall campaign for comment.
Naramore, who has never held elected office, praised Hamilton as an outsider. He said Hamilton is “not a politician” and “will fight for all of us: Republicans, Democrats and independents.”
Hamilton, the senior pastor of the Church of the Resurrection, is trying to become the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Kansas since former Sen. George McGill in 1932.
The odds, however, remain stacked against him. As of Wednesday, Decision Desk HQ gave Hamilton a 23% chance of pulling off the win.
The Cook Political Report also rates the contest as “lean” in Marshall’s favor. That said, the election handicapper shifted the race to the left on Wednesday.
Hamilton wasted little time promoting his new Republican backer. Sharing Naramore’s endorsement video on X, the Democrat wrote, “Kansans of every political party agree: Roger Marshall isn’t getting the job done.”
Naramore is not the only Republican to cross party lines and publicly support Hamilton over Marshall.
Last week, former Kansas Gov. Bill Graves, a Republican, endorsed Hamilton, saying it is “time” for voters in the state to “do something different.”
Graves also took aim at the incumbent in a video that Hamilton shared on X.
“For the last six years, Senator Roger Marshall has turned his back on Kansas,” the former governor said.
The back-to-back endorsements from Republicans give Hamilton fresh ammunition as he works to win over voters beyond his own party in a state that has not sent a Democrat to the Senate in more than nine decades.
For Marshall, the race remains in his favor according to both Decision Desk HQ and the Cook Political Report. But Wednesday’s shift by Cook and the growing list of Republicans lining up behind his opponent signal that the contest is one to watch heading into November.
Naramore’s decision to back a Democrat comes just months after he tried to defeat Marshall from within the GOP. Though he fell short in August, the more than 20% of the vote he received showed that a share of Kansas Republicans was open to an alternative to the sitting senator.
