Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, left, and independent challenger Greg Orman, right, during campaign stops the week before the Nov. 4, 2014 election.

Topeka ? Despite eight weeks of intensive work and millions in advertising, Sen. Pat Roberts enters Election Day no surer of his re-election than when national Republican Party operatives ordered a reboot of the veteran senator’s campaign in September.

On the final day of the campaign, Roberts was unable to shake the threat of independent Greg Orman despite the campaign reboot, which included bringing in new staff and an aggressive campaign schedule. The incumbent won a competitive but bruising Republican primary in August, but Orman emerged as a serious threat after the Democratic nominee dropped out of the race in September.

Roberts was traversing rural, urban and suburban Kansas hammering the theme with farmers, small business owners and supporters in heavily populated Johnson County that Orman is a Democrat in disguise and that a Republican Senate is the only way to get the federal government moving. Kansans have elected only Republicans to the U.S. Senate since 1932.

“The road to a Republican majority is now running right through Kansas,” Roberts told about 100 small business owners and supporters at a Topeka oil company. “Right now, it’s up to Kansas.”

Roberts, a 78-year-old veteran of 34 years in Congress, was criticized by his primary election opponent, tea party-backed Milton Wolf, of being away from Kansas too often and having become enmeshed in the dysfunction of Washington. Kansas political legend Bob Dole, who had appeared several times with Roberts in recent weeks told The Associated Press: “I thought, ‘This campaign’s looking better.'”

Topeka Republican Diane Herynk, who had already voted for Roberts when she attended his event in Topeka, didn’t need much convincing.

“He brings to Kansas the things that farmers need. Pat Roberts is Kansas,” the retired nursery owner said.

Orman has narrowly led in Kansas polls since early October. He spent Monday knocking on doors in the Wichita, Topeka and Johnson County areas.

Orman’s strategy for winning requires higher participation by independent voters and Democrats than in typical midterm elections. As of the weekend, the number of returned early ballots and early votes cast by registered Democrats and unaffiliated, or independent, voters was 45 percent, higher than the past two previous midterm elections.

“Ultimately, I think the more people who vote and the more people who take this election seriously, the better off our campaign is going to be,” Orman told reporters.

Orman briefly campaigned door-to-door in neighborhoods in Wichita, Topeka, and the vote-rich Kansas City suburbs of Johnson County, the state’s most populous county. In Topeka, a gaggle of reporters and television cameras trailed the candidate as he made a few stops.

Matt Benaka, a new 36-year-old Topeka father who recently quit his job to take care of his 13-week-old daughter, Amelia, cradled the infant in his arms as he spoke on his front porch with Orman.

“I’m ready for change in Washington — ready for change,” he said. “It’s been frustrating to see Pat Roberts not even able to run on his own policies and his own agenda.”

Orman also defended putting $3 million of his own funds into his campaign since June — most of it in October. Orman had raised about $3.5 million through mid-October, compared to Roberts, who raised roughly $7 million. Roberts and allied groups have outspent Orman.

In another unexpectedly competitive race, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback made stops in south central Kansas near Wichita, and his Democratic challenger Paul Davis hit GOP-leaning western Kansas, including Dodge City, Pratt and Great Bend.

The governor is pressing his case that personal income tax cuts enacted at his urging have spurred an economic comeback for Kansas.

“We are really doing well,” he said after a weekend rally in Topeka. “We are in good shape.”

Davis has argued that the tax cuts were reckless and have wrecked the state’s finances. State credit ratings have been downgraded, and the Legislature’s nonpartisan research staff is predicting a budget shortfall of at least $260 million by July 2016.

“The economic experiment isn’t working,” Davis said in a telephone interview between stops. “You see a general dissatisfaction with the direction that the state is going … They’re ready to make a change.”