Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton called Vice President JD Vance’s criticism of his religious beliefs “really sad” and “pathetic,” claiming the remarks showed desperation in the Kansas race.

Hamilton, a pastor seeking the open Senate seat, sat down with ABC’s Jonathan Karl on Sunday and brushed aside the vice president’s comments from a rally the prior Monday in Olathe. The Hill reported the exchange as Hamilton denied Vance’s characterizations outright and pulled a small Bible from his pocket to underline his own practices.

Vance had come to Kansas to back Sen. Roger Marshall and drew a sharp contrast on faith. He played soundbites from past Hamilton sermons and criticized the candidate’s church over a local pride festival.

Hamilton answered that the attack missed the mark completely. He cast it as political theater rather than a serious look at belief.

Vance puts Marshall’s Christian record against Hamilton’s record

At the Olathe rally, Vance praised Marshall as a proud servant of the state and a proud Christian. He then turned to Hamilton.

"In this race, we have got Dr. Roger Marshall, a proud servant of this state, and a proud Christian to boot, versus a guy who would insult your faith and spit on your religion to accrue donations to himself."

Vance also described Hamilton’s views as “left-wing radicalism dressed in the skin suit of our religion” and added, “That is not Christianity.” Karl put those lines to Hamilton directly in the interview.

Hamilton rejected every part of it. He said the vice president did not know him or his faith and asked when political figures began attacking personal belief this way.

"Well, I thought it was a sign of desperation and I thought it was really sad. It was pathetic. He doesn’t know me, doesn’t know anything about my faith. He came in attacking, when do we start attacking people’s faith?"

The pastor went further on the specific claims Karl read back to him, including suggestions that Hamilton treated being white or raising cattle as sins and that he backed groups hostile to God-fearing Americans.

"Yeah, so every single line of what you just read was a lie. It was a false hit. It was, like, 180 degrees different from reality. So there was no part of what he said was true."

Hamilton then listed his own daily habits and challenged Vance to a direct comparison of theology and results. He said he slips to his knees, offers his life to Christ, prays for the Holy Spirit to lead him, reads scripture, and carries a Bible everywhere.

"I not only seek to be a follower of Jesus, but to practice that in how I treat other people. And I just would say examine my life, examine the way I’ve tried to live and then I want to see, Mr. Vice President, let’s compare. Let’s compare theology. Let’s compare our faith and the impact we’re having on the world."

Campaign invites Vance to the church he criticized

Hamilton’s team did not leave the matter at the interview. Spokesperson Glynnis Harvey said the campaign invited Vance to visit Hamilton’s congregation rather than keep attacking what she called the largest United Methodist Church in the country.

That church had drawn Vance’s fire over the pride festival, according to the reporting Karl and others referenced. Hamilton presented himself as a moderate pastor whose faith shapes how he treats people, not as a radical.

If Kansas voters send him to the Senate, he would become the first Democrat the state has elected to that chamber since George McGill in 1932. The long drought explains why both sides are treating the race as a high-stakes fight over values as much as policy.

Vance has spent recent months in other high-profile roles that keep him at the center of national debates, from chairing sensitive national security huddles to pressing immigration limits on major tech firms.

Democrats have answered his profile with personal shots of their own in other races. One Michigan Democrat recently reached for a television nickname jab aimed at the vice president.

Those exchanges fit a broader pattern in which Vance warns that Democratic control would bring endless investigations and pressure on American energy, while opponents try to recast his record in personal terms.

In the Kansas contest the core dispute stays fixed on faith practice and political clothing. Vance treated Hamilton’s public theology as left-wing politics wearing Christian language. Hamilton treated Vance’s critique as an uninformed and desperate hit.

Kansas voters get the contrast in plain terms

The Sunday interview gave Hamilton a national stage to restate his personal disciplines and to demand a theology comparison. It also left the sermon soundbites and the pride-festival criticism hanging without the fuller context both sides say matters.

Vance’s appearance for Marshall kept the focus on whether a Senate candidate’s public faith aligns with the beliefs of most Kansas churchgoers or drifts into progressive causes that many of those same voters reject. Hamilton’s reply leaned on denial, personal testimony, and the charge of desperation.

Similar friction has followed Vance into media and policy fights, including questions over anonymous sourcing in a Politico piece the White House later cited. The Kansas episode fits the same willingness to draw bright lines on culture and belief.

Marshall remains the Republican incumbent seeking another term with the vice president’s backing. Hamilton remains the Democrat who must persuade a state that has not sent his party to the Senate in nearly a century that his version of faith belongs in that seat.

Vance forced the question into the open at the Olathe rally. Hamilton answered with sadness, pathos, and an invitation to examine his life. Kansas will decide which account matches the record voters actually see.