Kansas
In 2016, Trump defeated Clinton by nearly 21 percentage points in Kansas. The state has given its electoral votes to the Republican ticket every year since 1968 and has a Partisan Voting Index score of R+13. We are following Kansas Congressional Districts 2 and 3 because we believe that Democratic voter mobilization could swing these districts to the Democrats. The Kansas primary election is scheduled for August 7, 2018.
There is no senate race in Kansas in 2018 so most of the statewide focus is on the governor’s race.
Republican Governor Sam Brownback is term-limited. On January 31, Brownback was officially sworn in as U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and Republican Lieutenant Governor Jeff Colyer assumed the governorship. In 2012 Brownback convinced a Republican-controlled legislature to slash income taxes, leaving the state struggling for years. As a result, voters ousted two dozen conservative lawmakers. Most of Brownback’s tax cuts were rolled back in 2017 with a $600 million-a-year tax hike. Colyer may be challenged with separating himself from the unpopular Brownback administration.
An even more aggressive conservative has surfaced as a front-runner: Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who supported Trump’s plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, outlined the plan calling on Mexico to pay for the construction, and supports “extreme vetting” for some immigrants. Kobach was also appointed by Trump to lead a commission on election fraud. Kobach is anti-choice and a gun-rights advocate and is also a regular columnist for Breitbart News.
On the Democratic side, leading candidates include former Wichita mayor Carl Brewer, former State Agriculture Secretary Joshua Svaty and Kansas House Minority Leader Jim Ward. Kansas has no runoffs and a crowd of 20+ is expected to run for governor. Given that Kansas has no gubernatorial statutory qualifications, seven teenagers, including one who has never set foot in Kansas, are running for the office in this election cycle.