Opinion: Trump will leave Kansas more progressive than he found it

Take yourself back to 2017, the first year of President Donald Trump’s first term. 

Kansas was represented in Washington by two Republican senators and four Republican representatives. Sam Brownback served as governor, flanked by Kris Kobach as secretary of state and Attorney General Derek Schmidt — all Republicans.

In the wake of Tuesday’s midterms, the Trump coalition in Kansas has buckled and tumbled.

It’s likely (if not certain) that Republicans have lost both the offices of governor and attorney general. Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids earned her fifth term. In the most historic swing in the nation, Adam Hamilton became the Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate in Kansas since 1932.

Election night brings out the hot takes, and I’ve got mine: Over two terms and 10 years, Trump made Kansas more progressive.

Trump has improbably turned a feverish red Kansas into a complicated, if momentary, purple, especially for the state’s high-profile offices.

On election day

Consider the Senate vote shares of Republican U.S. Sens. Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran since 2016. Moran’s electoral victories marginally tightened, from 62% of the vote in 2016 to 60% in 2022. A Trump acolyte, Marshall saw his share of the vote decline more steeply, evaporating from a comfortable win in 2020 with 53.2% of the votes to a decisive loss with 46% this year.

To gauge Trump’s effect on U.S. House races in Kansas, examine the vote shares of Republican candidates since 2016. On average, Republican candidates in Kansas earned a steady 56.6% of the vote from 2018 through 2024. This week’s election saw that average drop to 50.5% across the four House districts. 

Davids, the Democrat, enjoyed her largest margin of victory this week in eastern Kansas: 21 percentage points.

If you are tempted to pin this U.S. House performance on poor candidates, slow down. The cast of candidates hasn’t changed that much. Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Estes has been on the ballot in District 4 since 2018, gathering 62.5% of votes on average before this midterm. However, in this election, his vote share dropped 8.5 percentage points.

This midterm clearly signals that Kansans are punishing Trump and his allies.

However, it also reveals increasing comfort with Democratic candidates whom Trump opposed. 

Since Trump’s inauguration, Kansans have elected a Democratic female governor twice decisively — and perhaps once more with Cindy Holscher’s likely narrow win this week. That threepeat reads like a repudiation of Trump’s hostility toward women in government. 

Holscher in particular seems a pointed jab at Trump’s ruthless brand of name-calling politics. Genial and cheery on social media, Holscher reads like an anti-Trump personality — not just in  policy positions.

Trump’s smear campaign against Hamilton, with an additional final Kansas event two days before the election, didn’t damage the pastor-turned-senator. Maybe it helped his victory.

At campaign rallies throughout election season, Trump called Hamilton a “bad person” and “a disgrace,” before posting on Truth Social that he is a “Radical Left LUNATIC Dumocrat.” And yet, Hamilton won.

As Trump backed flawed Kansas candidates in statewide elections (between them, Marshall and Kobach have lost three general election races during Trump’s presidential era), his vitriolic presidency has recruited talented moderates to run as Democrats. Opposing MAGA seemed like a de facto campaign mission statement.

Each time Hamilton invoked his motivation as being “sick and tired of the hyperpolarization in Washington,” he was gesturing toward the president.

Kansas Democrats will benefit strategically from having the subtle hand of Hamilton in the Senate. If you think Hamilton’s campaign garnered national media attention during the campaign, just wait. An eloquent, genial senator with both folksy charm and Bible verses? Reporters and television cameras in Washington, D.C., will make him Kansas’s most visible senator. (So much for your three-term seniority, Moran.)

On the issues

After Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in 2020, Kansas counties did indeed swing for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Kansas election maps showed nearly every county as a net gain in his race against Democrat Kamala Harris in Kansas that November. The only counties that shifted toward Harris were electorally insignificant.

Since then, Trump’s policies have nudged — no, shoved — Kansans away from the GOP and to the left. Prices for consumer, agricultural and industrial goods have risen, the result of Trump’s insistent tariff policies and clumsy ongoing war with Iran. (Not coincidentally, Vice President JD Vance seems suddenly allergic to that war following this week’s election.) 

Immigration raids in Kansas received critical press coverage as schools and businesses reacted to instability in communities such as Garden City. According to polling, likely Kansas voters came to trust Democrats on immigration over the past few months.

A New York Times poll during the past few weeks noted that Democrats and Republicans were essentially a toss-up among Kansans for “which candidate do you think would do a better job on immigration.” In a policy area that Republicans have traditionally dominated, polling showed Democrats with a 1 point polling advantage.

More proof? In September, Kansans who were likely voters said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of immigration more than they approved — by a margin of 7 percentage points.

With these policies, Trump activated progressive pockets of grassroots Kansas. Drive past a Tesla dealership or a No Kings rally and behold the Baby Boomers who found purpose in rebelling against Trump. Their aging hands held signs that read “Trump is a Traitor” or “Pro-America Anti-Trump.” Eight percent of Kansas voters over the age of 65 swung to Democrats in the U.S. Senate race this week as compared to 2024. 

While a small part of the Kansas electorate, Hispanic voters also broke for the Democrats by 49 percentage points over Republicans, a swing of more than 38 percentage points from 2024.

The shift among young Kansans was similarly drastic. When compared with 2024, young Kansas voters (18-29 years old) shifted their vote to the Democrat in 2026 by 35 percentage points. Among young men, the shift was almost ludicrous: 43 percentage points. 

While progressives shouldn’t count on the continued allegiance of these voting blocs (after all, they just changed their minds from 2024), their party change signals that their attachment to Trump’s Republican Party didn’t stick. 

Trump remains

Every hot take — even mine — demands caveats. 

Kansas has surely moved to the left thanks to Trump, but the president’s influence on Kansas politics and national elections isn’t over. 

Along with many other political writers and pundits, I long ago erroneously and repeatedly forecast (and perhaps begged) for Trump’s political demise. We have seen him as toxic, irrelevant, radioactive and guilty — but never retreating. 

The residue of Trump’s nasty and racist politics will remain in our culture and in the minds of many ardent MAGA voters in Kansas. The president synthesized the well-funded Republican political machine with a ferocious rhetoric of grievance. Voters who danced to his dog whistles are still listening.  

Many Kansans also have a loyalty to the GOP that predates Trump. Their conservatism will remain a signature of the state’s politics. (Perhaps you noted that Hamilton, the Democratic victor, invoked the name of legendary Republican U.S. Sen. Bob Dole to wild cheers during his victory speech on election night.)

Yes, Kansas rewarded some marginally liberal candidates with office this week, but that does not make it a blue state. 

During a late-night interview with the New York Times on election night, Trump sounded gutted and bedraggled. 

“I think the results were fine. … I am absolutely willing to accept those results,” Trump said after months of alleging widespread election cheating.

He continued: “We’ll work with the Democrats. We’ll look forward to working with them. We’ll probably work something out.”

One thing is for sure: There are now many more elected Democrats for the president to cooperate with in Kansas.

Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.