Kansas Inches Closer to Swing State Status
Learn how a red state loses its hue.
Topline Takeaways
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly won re-election and is the only 2022 Democratic gubernatorial candidate to win in a state that voted for Donald Trump in 2020.
Republican House candidates only managed to win over 56% of Kansas voters (despite winning 3 of the state’s 4 US House seats), continuing the decline seen over the past decade.
Many Kansas voters are still split-ticket voters as one of the most popular candidates on the ballot was Republican Sen. Jerry Moran.
How a Red State Loses Its Hue
Throughout the 20th century, Kansas was the quintessential red state. It had large swaths of farmland, small industrializing cities and a fierce commitment to the Republican party. Over the past 100 years, Kansas voters have only supported Democratic presidential candidates twice (LBJ and FDR) and no Democrat has represented the state in the US Senate since Sen. George McGill left office in 1938.
In 2012, Kansas Republicans hit a relative peak in their support from Kansas voters. Their US House candidates reaped a whopping 70% of the state’s vote across all districts. They also held all statewide executive offices and held supermajorities in both state houses. So what did they do? They tried an experiment in radical conservatism that failed spectacularly.
After racking up wins, Republicans led the state into what was later dubbed the “Kansas Experiment.” With complete control over state government, Kansas Republicans passed the largest income tax cut in the state’s history. Within five years the experiment was widely condemned as a failure as the state lagged behind neighboring states in economic development and experienced a massive budget shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. The experiment ultimately hurt local Republicans as they were forced to make drastic cuts in education to balance the budget. Cuts were so steep that the Kansas Supreme Court had to step in: ruling that the state’s education spending was unconstitutionally low. It also opened a rift between the moderate and conservative wings in the party which ultimately led to the election of the current Democratic governor Laura Kelly.
A Democrat Paves a Path to Victory
Gov. Laura Kelly’s campaign for re-election was expected to be one of the close races to watch in 2022 and the final result did not disappoint. While the margin of her win was smaller than her first gubernatorial election in 2018, she saw a marginal increase in her share of voters 48% to 49.5%. More importantly, Kelly has proven that Democrats can chart a reliable path to statewide wins in Kansas if they campaign in the state’s smaller rural towns.
Democrats have long been targeting the stretch of somewhat urbanized counties that connect the state’s capital (Topeka) with its largest metropolitan area (Kansas City) and its largest public university (located in Manhattan). Joe Biden ‘walked’ this same path in 2020 and still lost the state by 14 points. What made Kelly’s candidacy different was her ability to court voters outside of these developing urban counties, winning smaller towns like Emporia and Junction City. Kelly succeeded in creating a sea of pink across Eastern Kansas; indicative of her ability to keep margins close in the region’s rural counties. The same can’t be said of Biden, who struggled to notch even 40% of the vote in the vast majority of the state’s rural counties. (Biden’s 2020 performance is shown on the map below in blue.)
A Partisan Gerrymander Won’t Stop the Bleeding
Redistricting served as a saving grace for Kansas Republicans as they controlled the process and divided the state’s bluest communities to make districts safer for Republican candidates. While this redrawing of lines helped secure outcomes, it did nothing to stop Kansas voters’ continued march away from Republicans on the right.
Below is a graph showing the total statewide percentage vote for all Republican US House candidates for each congressional election year dating back to 2012. You can see that Republican US House candidates have gone from recieving a landslide-producing 70% of the total vote in 2012, down to a more precarious 57% today. Amidst all the forecasts of a red wave, Kansas House Republicans saw less support from voters than they did in 2020.
As the Republican party continues to lurch forcefully to the right, they’re leaving Kansas voters behind. If Democrats seize this opportunity and take the time to invest in moderate candidates like Gov. Laura Kelly, Kansas will be a sure-fire swing state in no time.