FLUNKED OUT

Election Guru Roasts MAGA Senator With ‘Worst Campaign’ Award

A top election analyst says one MAGA candidate stands out for running the worst election campaign.

A leading election analyst has delivered a scathing verdict on Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall’s re-election campaign.

“Kansas, I think, is the big surprise of the cycle,” Cook Political Report’s Jessica Taylor said Friday on Inside Politics with Dana Bash, as Marshall finds himself in an unexpectedly tight race against his Democratic challenger.

“I think Roger Marshall probably wins the award for running maybe the worst campaign, and he could have put this race away earlier,” she added.

She noted that President Donald Trump won Kansas by 16 points in the 2024 election. No Democrat has won a U.S. Senate race in the state since 1932.

But Kansas has unexpectedly emerged as a nail-biter as Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton has closed the gap in the polls. CNN released a poll Thursday showing him up four points among likely voters, 49 percent to Marshall’s 45 percent.

Taylor suggested Marshall, who won his 2020 Senate race by 11 points, had failed to heed national Republicans’ warnings about the political headwinds facing the party this cycle.

“I know that the NRSC told their incumbents, ‘You need to be ready. This is a tough cycle,’” she said. “And he was one who did not apparently heed that.”

She noted that Marshall “didn’t even have staff or consultants up until just a few weeks ago.”

Marshall’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The 66-year-old senator’s re-election bid was rocked by a New York Times report last month finding that before entering politics, the obstetrician-gynecologist sued 700 patients with outstanding bills, of whom 81 were arrested. His patients were also routinely charged 18 percent interest.

On a visit to Great Bend, Kansas, where Marshall is a longtime resident, Kansas City Star columnist David Hudnall found critics eager to air their grievances about the senator, but few supporters willing to speak up for him.

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Craig Neeland, a retired Farmers Bank and Trust banker, told Hudnall that while he voted for Marshall in 2016 and 2020, he could no longer support the candidate because “he gives Trump free rein every time.”

John Francis and Kip Spray, local friends of Marshall’s who recently arranged a fundraiser for him, refused to speak to Hudnall about the candidate, as did Marshall’s own state representative, a Republican.

Trump has vigorously defended Marshall against criticism of his record as a doctor and planned to hold a rally in his honor Saturday, only to abruptly scrap his appearance in favor of a telerally.

The president initially said Marshall was “doing very well” and didn’t need the rally, but reversed course Friday and now plans to campaign for the senator on Sunday in Salina, Kansas.

HOMETOWN ZERO

Warning Signs Emerge From Must-Win MAGA Senator’s Hometown

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