A seasoned Republican strategist is coming to Kansas to support Sen. Roger Marshall’s campaign as polls show Democrat Adam Hamilton neck and neck with the senator in a solidly Republican state.

Chris Grant, founder and president of Big Dog Strategies, has grown his Buffalo-based consulting business into one of the nation’s top Republican firms. Grant served as a senior advisor and general consultant to MAGA Inc., a political action committee that worked to elect President Donald Trump in 2024.

A spokesperson for Marshall did not respond to a request for comment, but Marshall’s chief of staff, Brent Robertson, praised the consultant to Axios.

“Chris is an absolute pro who has been a longtime friend to Team Marshall. Having him help land the plane these last three weeks is a no-brainer,” Robertson told Axios.

The company is familiar with Kansas and Marshall. Grant helped lead Marshall’s successful 2020 Senate campaign. In 2018, Big Dog Strategies worked on the campaign of Steve Watkins, who won one-term to Congress before being ousted by former Rep. Jake LaTurner.

Watkins left office after one term mired in controversy, and facing criminal charges for listing his home address as a UPS store when registering to vote.

Grant also was an adviser to former Rep. George Santos, a Long Island Republican whose political career also ended with his expulsion from Congress after an ethics report found Santos misused campaign funds for personal expense.

Eric Pahls, a senior vice president at Big Dog Strategies, is a former Marshall staffer and now lives in Lawrence.

Grant’s addition to the campaign signals growing uncertainty among Republicans about the race. Though Kansas hasn’t elected a Democratic senator in almost a century, the tide may be turning.

Cook Political Report, an election forecaster, recently rated the race as a toss up. Polling is sparse, but Hamilton has narrowly led several polls released over the past month.

Bob Beatty, a Washburn political science professor, said that bringing in an outside consultant at this stage could help Marshall push back against several controversies that have hampered his campaign.

Marshall has faced critical stories about his second home in Florida, allegations that his taxpayer-funded staff worked for his campaign and his billing practices when he was a rural obstetrician-gynecologist.

“The narrative has become that Marshall is on the defensive and doesn’t have answers for these attacks,” Beatty said. “What could happen is then you just say forget that and go on the attack against an opponent to reframe the question in the last couple of weeks of the election.”

The Senate Leadership Fund is spending $14 million in Kansas, diverting resources away from a North Carolina Senate race after Democrats pulled ahead in polling. Trump has joined in, announcing that he’ll campaign for Marshall in a “Kansas Style Rally” on Monday in Wichita.

Hamilton’s campaign cast the hiring of a nationally regarded strategist in a state Trump carried by 14 points as a sign of weakness.

“With just three weeks to go, Washington insiders are getting called in to try to save Marshall’s failing campaign,” said Glynnis Harvey, a spokesperson for Hamilton. “But finally hiring campaign staff won’t change the fact that the war in Iran is causing gas and diesel prices to keep rising, 63,000 Kansans are losing their healthcare, and the tariffs continue to make life more expensive.”

—The Star’s Kacen Bayless contributed to this report.

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