Democrat to challenge Roger Marshall next year for U.S. Senate seat in Kansas
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- Christy Davis enters 2025 Kansas Senate race to challenge incumbent Roger Marshall
- Davis highlights rural development record and criticizes Marshall's Trump alignment
- Senate primary set for August 6 as Kansas Democrats field multiple challengers
Christy Davis, a Democrat challenging Roger Marshall for his seat in the U.S. Senate, has spent most of the last 25 years as a historic preservation planner.
Her work has taken her to each of Kansas’ 105 counties, challenging her to help communities preserve their history and envision the revitalization of sleepy downtowns.
As state director for rural development in the Biden administration’s U.S. Department of Agriculture, Davis oversaw more than $1.3 billion of investment in Kansas — from community centers and housing developments to hospitals, clinics and nursing homes.
“One of my roles (at USDA) was to make sure that people who needed the funding the most got access to the funding — not just the people who could afford the best consultants or the people who could afford the highest-paid lobbyists,” said Davis, 50, in an interview.
The fifth-generation Kansan grew up on a dairy farm in Harvey County and has lived in Cottonwood Falls for the last 12 years, originally moving there when she started a six-year stint as executive director of Symphony in the Flint Hills.
Davis ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for Kansas’ First Congressional District in 2020, the same year Marshall abandoned the post to win his Senate seat. Davis earned 37% of the vote in the primary, losing out to Kali Barnett.
The two other Democrats who have so far launched bids to unseat Kansas’ junior senator are Overland Park attorney Anne Parelkar and perennial candidate Michael Soetaert of Wellington.
Senate candidate Christy Davis on the issues
In July, President Donald Trump took to his social media site to endorse Marshall, a MAGA loyalist who has defended the administration’s controversial policy decisions, including a federal funding freeze for the U.S. Agency for International Development that left $340 million of heartland grain and other commodities stalled in ports.
“KANSAS, Roger Marshall has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election – HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” Trump posted on July 9.
Marshall, Davis said, has been “a rubber stamp” to Trump, adding that some voters she’s met who supported the president have told her they don’t feel represented by the senator.
“Most Kansans don’t think that our federal policy should be guided by one person alone,” Davis said. “The job of Congress is to push back on our behalf.
“The challenge is that when they stop having town halls, the only communication they’re having is within Washington, and you don’t know how your citizens are being affected by policies if you don’t listen to them and take that into account,” Davis said.
At an agriculture conference in Kansas City last week, Marshall said that it’s unsafe for politicians to host traditional face-to-face events in public in the aftermath of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s slaying at a university campus in Utah.
“Right now doing in-person town halls will lead to violence,” Marshall told reporters. “I’m very fearful that these two groups will assault each other and I just don’t think it’s a very good idea right now. I’ve never seen such hatred coming out of people’s mouths at President Trump and his agenda.”
Davis said Kansans have legitimate reasons to oppose Trump’s agenda. Many of the farmers that Marshall considers to be his base are feeling the impact of “devastating tariff policies,” she said.
“There’s a thought that as long as you’re taking care of farmers, you’re taking care of rural (Kansas) and that’s not the case. But right now, farmers aren’t getting what they need either,” Davis said.
“They’re getting ready to harvest bumper crops, and they don’t have a place to store them while they figure out who’s going to buy them. Because the folks who’ve bought them in the past, the Chinese, they’ve walked away. Many other countries that we have relationships with have walked away.”
Davis also has grave concerns with the Department of Government Efficiency’s purge of federal employees, who she described as “the people who help ordinary Americans navigate programs that they need to succeed.”
Kansans, she said, deserve to have leaders who understand their struggles and can work as problem solvers on their behalf.
“People are struggling, and I see it everyday. And honestly, I’m one of them,” Davis said. “People in the past who might have skated through in times like these are definitely affected. There are professional people in two-income households that are living month to month.”
The U.S. Senate primary contests will be held next Aug. 6.
This story was originally published September 30, 2025 at 12:24 PM with the headline "Democrat to challenge Roger Marshall next year for U.S. Senate seat in Kansas."
