TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2026
Willa Cather's Nebraska: The Houston Rodeo lives on in our mind. But from there, we could take you to Kansas.
As Jericho's walls crashed down last week, something highly unusual happened in that well-known American state. On Tuesday night, with Election Day done, the New York Times reported a fact which would be repeated all over cable news:
Democrat Wins a Kansas Senate Seat for the First Time Since 1932
The Rev. Adam Hamilton on Tuesday became the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Kansas since the Great Depression, according to The Associated Press, stunning Senator Roger Marshall, a one-term Republican.
Mr. Hamilton, a centrist from the Kansas City area who was registered as a Republican until February, rode voters’ frustration with the economy and disenchantment with Mr. Marshall to the upset victory. Mr. Marshall had campaigned with President Trump in the final days of the race and received late financial support from the national Republican Party, but it was not enough.
Mr. Hamilton, in capping his pulpit-to-politics journey, became the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Kansas since 1932.
It was a fact so nice, they stated it twice! And as a matter of fact, it's true:
The last Democratic senator from the state of Kansas was Senator George McGill—in 1932! He was elected in 1930 to replace outgoing Vice President Curtis, then won re-election two years later.
There had been no Democrat since!
No Dem since 1932! But as the Times report continued, this subtle suggestion appeared:
"There had been subtle signs in recent years that Kansas was shifting to the left, electing a Democratic governor for two terms..."
That was also true! But regarding that two-term Democratic governor, she was hardly alone, and she was nothing especially new. Here are the winners of the last ten gubernatorial elections in this, the Sunflower State:
Elected as governor of Kansas:
1990: Joan Finney (D)
1994, 1998: Bill Graves (R)
2002, 2006: Kathleen Sebelius (D)
2010, 2014: Sam Brownback (R)
2018, 2022: Laura Kelly (D)
2026: Cindy Holscher (D)
Governor's Holscher's win is still unofficial, but it seems to be a foregone conclusion. Axios explains here.
(Governor Sebelius, of course, went on to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Obama. As for Obama, he's still said to come from Kenya if you watch the "American Garbage" which gets spewed on the pitiful Fox News Channel.)
At any rate, in six of the past ten elections, Kansans have elected a Democrat to serve as governor. And they've sent female Democrats to the State House every single time!
("These are the days of miracle and wonder," Paul Simon declared on his Graceland album. But how can we make that proclamation be true? How can we access that grace?)
Six of the past ten elections! These have been the judgments of our fellow citizens, the fellow citizens we can also honor as Kansans. They'd been slow to send a Dem to D.C., but they've been sending female Dems to the State House on a regular basis. Go figure!
As a manifestation of Americana, we're always eager to steer you toward Willa Cather's My Antonia, in which Cather expresses her admiration for the tenacity of the vibrant and admirable "immigrant girls" who worked to build the state of Nebraska.
In the part of the book we most admire, her gender-switched narrator says this about that part of this expanding nation at that particular time:
The older girls, who helped to break up the wild sod, learned so much from life, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers; they had all, like Ántonia, been early awakened and made observant by coming at a tender age from an old country to a new.
[...]
I always knew I should live long enough to see my country girls come into their own, and I have...
They had learned so much from their mothers and grandmothers! That's part of what Cather has her narrator say as he describes "the rich farms where that first crop of stalwart Bohemian and Scandinavian girls are now the mistresses."
Those words from Cather are sacred text here, though in the chapter to which we refer, the narrator is more concerned with the physical beauty and personal vibrancy of the "immigrant girls" in question than with the material success their devotion to duty created.
That said, American voters chose to move many women into State Houses this year. For us, that story begins with the scrappy messaging of first-time candidate Amy Acton (Ohio), but it quickly moves on to Governors-elect Bottoms in Georgia and Hinojosa in Texas, along with a raft, or perhaps an ark, of others.
(NBC News: "Record number of female governors elected.")
In this way, the gruesome misogyny of our nation's raft of under-developed bros was widely rejected by voters this year. Governor-elect Hinojosa took us to a distinctive part of this very large nation with this part of her victory speech:
“I am a daughter of the Rio Grande Valley, where the people embody the work ethic and values of our great state, where no one would have imagined that one day, a little girl from the RGV would stand before you here as the next governor of the greatest state, Texas. But God had a plan, and the people of Texas had a plan, too.”
Did God have a plan? We can't tell you that. But human talent emerges in the Rio Grande Valley, as it once emerged in Cather's windswept Nebraska. That fact became clear again this year.
Back in Kansas, Candidate Hamilton became that first Democratic senator in a very long time. As with the remarkable win by the very young Candidate Talarico in Texas, Hamilton's "pulpit-to-politics journey" came from within another American tradition.
In the report we've just quoted again, the New York Times starts to explain:
Mr. Hamilton, the founder of the 24,000-member Church of the Resurrection, the largest church in Kansas and the nation’s largest United Methodist congregation, also had particular strengths.
He presented as a sure-footed centrist with decades of experience working crowds. He proved to be a strong fund-raiser. And before he made a single campaign promise, many in Kansas were familiar with him from TV broadcasts of his church services.
He had been been on TV and he isn't a nut. Kansans have now sent him to Washington. Regarding his starting point, this:
At this site, we don't hold religious views or religious faith, but we're aware of the fact that large numbers of people do. We Dems have often handicapped ourselves with snarky reactions to matters of faith.
As we explore our nation's highly varied roots, we'll start right there on the morrow. Lauren Jackson will be saying that it's Senator Warnock who started this most recent electoral awakening.
Wedded to our Americana, we'll mention Dr. King too.
Tomorrow: Matthew 25 lies at its heart, Lauren Jackson declares
