Kansas voters preserved their congressional compliment in Tuesday night’s election, replacing an outgoing Republican with another state GOP stalwart and re-electing the state’s sole Democrat with the benefit of the Kansas’ biggest, bluest county.
In a night which on the national stage saw the re-election of President Donald J Trump and the planting of the Republican flag in the U.S. Senate, Kansas Republicans in the 2nd District elected former state Attorney General Derek Schmidt with 57% of the vote over former Democrat congresswoman Nancy Boyda with 38% and Libertarian John Howard who gained 5% of the vote. Schmidt won the seat after a rigorous three-way Republican primary and takes the reins after Republican Jake LaTurner gave up the post.
Schmidt won 26 of the 27 counties in the sprawling Eastern Kansas district, seizing even blue steeped Douglas County from Boyda but falling hard by better than a double margin in northern Wyandotte, where he garnered only 9,100 to Boyda’s 18,800 votes. Schmidt even eked out a win in usually blue Shawnee County as well by the slimest margin of the night – 36,924 to Boyda’s 36,861 – an unofficial advantage until the ballots are canvassed of 63 votes.
Tracey Mann of the Big 1st District retained his congressional seat with a solid 70% over challenger Paul Buskirk.
Ron Estes retained the 4th District for the GOP with a decisive 65 percent run over Esau Freeman. Estes was also did critical work in helping Republicans keep their supermajorities in the Kansas House and Senate. Through his state leadership PAC Keep Kansas Red and his own campaign, Estes invested more than $150,000 to help get out the vote in key races, including critical contests in Sedgwick County and Johnson County, and also financially helped local county parties to build the infrastructure needed to win. His campaign said he contributed $250,000 directly to federal candidates across the country in an effort to grow the majority in the U.S. House.
Sharice Davids proved a success of her campaign of evasion in the bulk of her district, having dodged three of four planned debates with Republican challenger Prasanth Reddy over the campaign term and losing each of the rural enclaves of Anderson, Franklin and Miami counties by near two-to-one margins. Davids sealed the deal in her favored urban/suburban liberal strongholds of southern Wyandotte and Johnson counties. The total gave Davids 53 percent by night’s end to Reddy’s 43 percent with Libertarian Steve Roberts picking up 4 percent.
The slightly new Kansas contingent will embark into a monumentally different Washington than the one it’s members greeted two years ago, with a sweeping Trump victory which was poised to win more than 300 electoral votes by the end of the night. That momentum also brought the GOP control of the Senate as well as the expected retention of the U.S. House once all those votes are tallied.
Dane Hicks is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA. He is the author of novels "The Skinning Tree" and "A Whisper For Help." As publisher of the Anderson County Review in Garnett, KS., he is a recipient of the Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award as well as more than 60 awards for excellence in news, editorial and photography.
