There’s a pretty pitched battle for the title of “Dumbest Member of the Senate.” Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, Tommy Tuberville, Marsha Blackburn, and John Kennedy are all in the running. Well, add a new entrant—Roger Marshall, the freshman senator from Kansas.
On Saturday, CNN’s Pamela Brown asked Marshall about a new CNN poll showing a whopping 70% of Republicans don’t believe Biden was legitimately elected. She also reminded Marshall that he not only objected to the certification of Biden’s wins in Arizona and Pennsylvania even after the Jan. 6 insurrection, but signed onto the windmill-tilting Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn Biden’s wins in those states and two others. Watch Marshall’s response below.
When Brown asked Marshall if he had any regrets for his past votes, Marshall claimed that “we’re just so ready to move on” from the dispute over the 2020 election’s legitimacy. After repeating the bogus claim that six states ignored their own laws, he claimed it was time for “a spirit of forgiveness” so we could focus on the issues facing this country.
Like hell we will move on, Roger. You promoted the claim that Biden hadn’t won legitimately even after it was comprehensively debunked, and even after it resulted in election officials and voting tech company employees being harassed, trolled, and threatened. And you’re STILL promoting that claim even after it caused a deadly insurrection—one that resulted in police officers being gravely injured, and your colleagues on both sides having to flee for their lives. And you have the nerve to tell us to move on? How dare you, Senator. HOW DARE YOU!
You have no right to insist that we move on when one of your first votes as a senator had the effect of disgracing yourself, the Senate, and the people of Kansas. You have no right to insist that we move on when you effectively gave succor to a deadly insurrection.
The weird thing about it is that Marshall was supposedly the sane choice in the Republican primary for the seat of retiring Pat Roberts. Remember? Virtually the entire state and national Republican establishment closed ranks behind Marshall in order to fend off Kris Kobach, who was believed to be so far right that he would effectively be handing that seat to the Democrats. Before then, he ran for and won the Republican nomination in the “Big First” district by portraying himself as a saner choice than its tea-swilling incumbent, Tim Huelskamp.
And now we know that Marshall’s moral compass is fundamentally warped. If he’s what passes for sane in the Kansas GOP, I don’t want to see unhinged.
Fortunately, Marshall can’t tenure himself in just yet. Although he defeated state Senator Barbara Bollier by just under 12 points, Bollier got 41% of the vote—the first time a Democrat has been north of 40% in a Kansas Senate race since the 1996 special election that resulted in Sam Brownback taking Bob Dole’s old seat. The only other times in recent memory where I can find a Democrat getting 40% in Kansas were in 1974, when Dole was almost swept out by the post-Watergate backlash, and in 1978, when Nancy Landon Kassebaum was held to 53% for the seat that Marshall now holds. This race proved that a Republican can’t breathe easy in Kansas anymore. But if we’re to make Marshall pay for his moral bankruptcy in 2026, we’d better be about it.