NEW: Roger Marshall’s “Closing Pitch Leans Heavily on Discounting His Own Constituents’ Concerns” As Kansans Face Skyrocketing Prices

New York Times: “‘Our small businesses can’t sit and wait on a promise for things to happen because we’re feeling the crunch right now,’ Mr. Surritt told the senator. Mr. Marshall begged to differ”

As floundering, corrupt GOP Sen. Roger Marshall faces an “unexpectedly steep re-election challenge,” the New York Times reports that his “closing pitch leans heavily on discounting his own constituents’ concerns” as Kansans “grapple with economic anxieties exacerbated by tariffs and the costs of the war with Iran.”

According to the report, Marshall has “curtailed traditional public town halls and remains elusive on the campaign trail” – offering “little in the way of personal connection” and “creating growing distance [with] his constituents.” With small businesses across the state “feeling the crunch” thanks to Marshall’s toxic, price-spiking agenda, Marshall has argued that “there are things more important than money to Kansans” and “begged to differ” with voters who say they “can’t sit and wait on a promise for things to happen.”

Marshall’s dismissal of Kansans’ economic pain comes as he’s “facing backlash” for his “extreme” and “predatory” record of filing over 700 lawsuits against his own patients – many of whom were uninsured new mothers – who struggled to cover medical bills “as little as $101” – producing 81 arrests. It also comes on the heels of a recent ethics complaint against Marshall that he “illegally used taxpayer funds to pay campaign staff, as well as for political trips and events.”

See for yourself:

New York Times: In Deep Red Kansas, a Trump Loyalist Fights to Defend a Senate Seat

• In a restored 1920s train station in North Topeka last week, Senator Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas, listened as a constituent spoke up to complain about how badly President Trump’s tariffs had hurt his family’s manufacturing company.
• Customers were pulling back, Zachary Surritt told Mr. Marshall at a Chamber of Commerce gathering, while costs were rising and employees were struggling to make ends meet.
• “Our small businesses can’t sit and wait on a promise for things to happen because we’re feeling the crunch right now,” Mr. Surritt told the senator.
• Mr. Marshall begged to differ.
• “I think your experience is different than most of the other manufacturing companies that I’ve talked to,” the senator said. “Most of them are expanding and business is great.”
• It was an unusual message for a Republican facing an unexpectedly steep re-election challenge as voters grapple with economic anxieties exacerbated by tariffs and the costs of the war with Iran. But then Mr. Marshall, a first-term senator who rode Mr. Trump’s political wave into Congress and has styled himself as an ultra-loyal acolyte of the president’s ever since, has never faced much of a challenge in his solidly conservative state.
• It may be one reason his closing pitch leans heavily on discounting his own constituents’ concerns.
• “Certainly the cost of gas is an issue,” Mr. Marshall told reporters at another stop in Topeka last week, “but now people are coming home saying, ‘Oh, what’s more important than money?’ There are things more important than money to Kansans.”
• Back at the Chamber of Commerce event, Mr. Marshall, a tall, somewhat ungainly 66-year-old, flashed his broad, white-toothed smile as he made a similar argument to Mr. Surritt, defending the tariffs as a necessary tool for bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States and countering unfair trade practices, particularly by China.
• The encounter encapsulated how Mr. Marshall, who has spent his political career portraying himself as a champion of the state’s farmers, ranchers and small-business owners, is now grappling with the frustrations of some of those same people — many of them lifelong Republicans.
• The challenge has Mr. Marshall fighting to keep a Senate seat Republicans have held continuously for more than a century, an almost unheard-of predicament in Kansas politics.
• His struggles extend beyond the economy. A New York Times investigation found that Mr. Marshall, who spent decades practicing as an obstetrician-gynecologist before entering politics, sued more than 700 patients over unpaid bills, with some patients arrested after failing to appear in court.
• A campaign finance watchdog group filed an ethics complaint this week alleging that Mr. Marshall illegally used taxpayer funds to pay campaign staff, as well as for political trips and events. The group, End Citizens United, cited an investigation by the Kansas Reflector that found texts and emails suggesting his Senate staff improperly sought to use taxpayer money to pay for campaign trips.
• Mr. Marshall’s campaign finance filings listed no staff salaries as recently as the summer, […]. Aides from Mr. Marshall’s official Senate office have accompanied him to campaign events, at times acting as spokespeople and helping manage his appearances. Though it is not unusual for congressional aides to take on dual rolls supporting campaigns, members of Congress typically take great pains to ensure that political tasks, trips and functions are not paid for by taxpayers.
• Mr. Marshall also faced heavy criticism after a bakery owner complained that she had never received payment for $678 worth of cookies bearing the senator’s name and other sweets that his campaign ordered in 2020.
• He has also faced criticism over property he owned in Florida and questions about how much time he has spent in Kansas.
• “You don’t live here!” attendees shouted when the topic came up at a recent debate.
• Mr. Marshall and his aides did not respond to repeated requests for interviews from multiple Times reporters. During a recent campaign appearance, an aide briefly prevented a Times reporter from remaining at the event.
• […] his Democratic opponent Adam Hamilton, a Methodist pastor who founded one of the nation’s largest congregations, has become unexpectedly competitive. Recent polling shows the race in a statistical dead heat, alarming Republican leaders in Washington and prompting millions of dollars in outside spending.
• Privately, many Republicans believe Mr. Marshall grew comfortable in what he assumed was a safe seat and waited too long to prepare for a serious challenge, despite urging from colleagues to mount a more robust effort long before Mr. Hamilton entered the race, according to several people familiar with conversations among party leaders and operatives.
• But there were signs more than a year ago that Mr. Marshall could be in trouble. At a town hall meeting in March 2025 in western Kansas, constituents confronted him over tariffs, federal spending cuts and the elimination of government jobs. The senator grew increasingly irritated, accused the audience of being rude and abruptly left the gathering as attendees booed and shouted after him.
• […] Mr. Marshall amplified an unsubstantiated allegation that protesters had been paid to attend. He later acknowledged having no firsthand evidence for the claim.
• Mr. Beatty said the episode exposed a growing distance between Mr. Marshall and his constituents, who are more accustomed to figures like former Senator Bob Dole and Senator Jerry Moran making themselves accessible even to those who disagreed with them.
• Mr. Marshall has since curtailed traditional public town halls and remains elusive on the campaign trail, opting for more controlled gatherings almost exclusively for supporters, including a bus tour this month that crisscrossed the state.
• When he does appear, he offers little in the way of personal connection.
• For now, Mr. Marshall’s greatest liability may be what has propelled his political rise: his close alignment with Mr. Trump, whose policies have now alienated some of the state’s most important Republican constituencies.
• Agriculture has been central to Mr. Marshall’s political identity since he entered politics criticizing Representative Tim Huelskamp, the Republican he defeated in a primary, for losing his seat on the Agriculture Committee.
• But as Trump administration policies have disrupted markets and raised costs, Mr. Marshall has more often defended Mr. Trump than challenged him.
• When the president last year proposed increasing beef imports from Argentina to lower grocery prices, the move angered American cattle ranchers. But Mr. Marshall said the impact would be minimal, comparing the amount of Argentine beef entering the country to a single hamburger among thousands of tailgates at a Kansas City Chiefs game.
• Americans concerned about high beef prices could simply choose to eat something else, he said.
• “You can buy chicken, you can buy pork,” he said during an interview with CBS Mornings.
• Earlier this year, the Kansas Livestock Association’s political action committee, which supported Mr. Marshall in 2020, declined to endorse him for re-election over tariffs and remarks Mr. Trump made about beef prices being too high.
• Mr. Hamilton, who has built his candidacy around faith, moderation and finding common ground, has proved difficult to caricature as too far to the left for the state. He has won endorsements from two of the state’s former Republican governors, Mike Hayden and Bill Graves.
• Still, Mr. Marshall has worked to cast him as an extremist.
• But those attacks have competed for attention with the series of controversies surrounding the senator, which come as Democrats have made corruption in Washington — and how it is costing ordinary Americans — a defining campaign theme.
• Mr. Hamilton and allied groups have blanketed the airwaves throughout the state with ads about the senator’s legal action against former patients. Mr. Marshall’s campaign has responded with advertisements featuring former patients praising him as a caring physician.

See also: DSCC: QUICK CLIP: Roger Marshall Shrugs Off Spiking Gas Prices – “There Are Things More Important Than Money to Kansans”; DSCC: A “Perfect Storm to Put Kansas In Play”: Roger Marshall Faces “Uphill Battle” in Toss-Up Senate Race; DSCC: PRAIRIE PROBLEMS: Roger Marshall’s Campaign Flounders as Reports Find He Abused Taxpayer Dollars and Stiffed a Kansas Business; DSCC: QUICK CLIP: Roger Marshall Facing a “Mathematical Perfect Storm” in Kansas as “Historically Popular” Adam Hamilton Surges in New Poll; DSCC: “SHAME ON YOU”: Roger Marshall Relentlessly Booed, Heckled at Debate Amid Questions About His Toxic Record, “Predatory” Practices as OB-GYN; DSCC: ICYMI: GOP Senator Roger Marshall “Facing Backlash” for “Extreme,” “Predatory,”& “Unbelievably Aggressive” Practices; DSCC: ICYMI: Roger Marshall “Sued 700 Patients for Debts; 81 Were Arrested. Now He’s a Senator” [New York Times]