Just two years after Donald Trump won Kansas by 16 points in his fight to regain the White House, Republicans in the state are scrambling to retain their dominance. The battle for one of its two seats in the US Senate is too close to call, setting the stage for a potentially extraordinary upset.

Some recent polls even put Democrat Adam Hamilton on course for a historic victory. Kansans have not sent a representative of the party to the US Senate since 1932.

On the campaign trail, Hamilton regularly points to one of his state’s most famous residents: Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. Recalling a visit he made to Liberal, Kansas, and its Oz museum, he asks the audience to recall what Dorothy’s companions on her journey need. The lion needed courage, the scarecrow a brain and the tin man a heart.

Washington needs more of all three, he says, and he can deliver it. He decided to run for office after seeing the Trump administration act in ways that were “not good or kind or compassionate or humble”, Hamilton – in the energetic cadence of the pastor he is – told a crowd of business leaders in Topeka on Friday. He was waiting for Roger Marshall, the state’s Republican incumbent senator, to stand up for his state and its people.

“I would have arguments with Roger Marshall in the shower. He was not in the shower with me,” Hamilton joked. “And I would just say, Roger, please stand up for your people. You were not hired to be a spokesperson for the White House. You were hired to fight for your people.”

Hamilton’s role as senior pastor of the country’s largest United Methodist congregation comes with name recognition and speaking skills. But Marshall’s liabilities as his opponent – namely, the fact he sued hundreds of his patients for unpaid bills, resulting in the arrests of dozens of them – have contributed greatly to Hamilton’s prospects of flipping the seat.

He readily and frequently shares the stories of everyday Kansans he’s met on the trail for US Senate, from the woman whose health insurance premiums cost as much as her mortgage, so she had to drop coverage, to the farmer who cried over the state of the industry for young farmers.

Electorally, he’s trying to win over independents and Republicans, calling himself an independent-minded Democrat. It would be valuable, he told the business leaders last week, for Kansas to have a Democrat like him and a Republican in Jerry Moran representing them in the US Senate – working both sides of the aisle.

In a video welcoming Trump to Kansas, Hamilton said he hoped the president would hear from the people struggling throughout Kansas with rising costs and uncertainty. But, he told Kansans, they all had a place in his campaign, regardless of who they voted for, or their party affiliation.

“I’m running to be a champion for the people of Kansas: Republicans, Democrats and independents. I won’t answer to a party, and I won’t answer to any one person in Washington,” he said in the video. “I answer to you.”

In Topeka, Kansas voters were open to the pitch. Several who attended Hamilton’s forum on Friday had attended a similar forum with Marshall earlier in the day. Before and after the event, Hamilton circulated through the crowd of a few dozen voters, shaking hands and taking photos. Voters said they appreciated his accessibility, even if some wanted some more specific answers.

Brennen Ross, a 20-year-old political science and economics student at Washburn University in Topeka, watched Marshall earlier in the day then came to see Hamilton. The national attention on Kansas now has been “super interesting” for a state often best known for its sports teams, he said.

He’s an unaffiliated voter, leaning toward Hamilton. The cost of housing, the job market for people his age and the availability of water in rural Kansas are all weighing on his mind, he said. The first issue he mentioned, though, was Hamilton’s effort to “turn the heat down” amid rising political polarization.

“That’s really compelling, and it resonates with a lot of Kansans, especially like a lot of younger Kansans that I speak to on this election,” Ross said.

Jacinta Bergkamp, a 30-year-old Democrat with a young professional group called Forge Young Talent, asked both Hamilton and Marshall about housing affordability at each of their events. She said affordability looms large across the board for young people. Women’s rights and access to abortion matter to her vote, too.

Bergkamp, wearing a shirt that said “Vote Dammit”, has found the Democratic interest in Kansas “encouraging” and said that Kansans have seemed “fed up” with what they’re experiencing, with more people willing to speak out against their representatives and hold them accountable.

“Usually it feels a little, I guess, lonely” to be a Democrat in Kansas, she said. “We always kind of think of Kansas as being purple. Kansas isn’t red or blue … It’s very clear that Kansas is more liberal than what people think outside of Kansas.”

Linda Murphy Maina, who owns a Topeka boutique called Linda’s Afrikan Kreations, said she looks for which candidates are good for the people, and how they can serve the community. On some questions, she wanted more direct answers, but she felt Hamilton homed in on working together and helping people. “I’m still doing a little research, but he tickled my fancy,” she said.

Susana Ortiz, a counselor who has a private practice in Topeka, said her background in mental health means she looks for candidates who would be best for her clients. She doesn’t expect candidates to have all the answers, but they need to show they care about people, and are willing to accept feedback from the public about their decisions.

Ortiz is still deciding who to vote for. “More and more people, it seems, are expressing frustration with the rising cost of living,” she said. “And so they’re looking for solutions, and I think that allows people to be a little more open-minded to perhaps voting across party lines.”

Hamilton, working to convince the politically mixed crowd to take a chance on a Democrat, told the Topeka business leaders that he didn’t think Marshall had done a good job of listening to the people. He noted that the last time Marshall held an open town hall was about 600 days ago, when he left the town hall after facing pointed questions. (Marshall has said the town halls became “non-productive and dangerous”.)

Hamilton doesn’t have many superpowers, he told the crowd. He can’t sing, he’s bad at golf, he was a horrible football player. His superpower, he said, is that he listens and he really cares, and he has a “propensity to fight for people”.

“I’m gonna just fight like hell for the people in Kansas,” he said.