WASHINGTON — Republicans created fertile ground for Amanda Adkins to win the Kansas 3rd Congressional District, but shifting national momentum might stifle their chances of a successful harvest in the fall.
After Adkins lost to Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids by 10 percentage points in 2020, the Republican-controlled Legislature redrew the district, chopping out some of the most reliable Democratic voters in diverse Wyandotte County and adding reliable Republican voters from rural, mostly white counties.
The new lines created a district where candidates live and die by national political momentum — typically an advantage for challengers in a midterm election, where the party opposing the president often picks up seats in Congress. The district went from one Democrats won in the presidential race in both 2016 and 2020 to boundaries that former President Donald Trump would have won in 2016 and President Joe Biden would have narrowly flipped four years later.
Johnson County, the state’s most populous and affluent county, remains the home to the bulk of the district’s voters and will likely determine who prevails in the bellwether district.
“The legislature racially gerrymandered the district to whitewash it, remove the most reliable Democratic voters,” said Patrick Miller, a political science professor at the University of Kansas. “It really made that suburban white voter in Johnson County, more of the decisive voter in the district.”
Through the early stages of the campaign, that national momentum appeared to be in Adkins' favor.
The suburban white voters that make up the bulk of the voting base in the district appeared to be losing faith in the Democratic Party they had helped give control of Congress, as the country faced record inflation and high gas prices. In July, Biden’s approval rating slipped to 38%, lower than Trump’s approval rating in 2018, when Democrats swept into control of the House of Representatives.
Then momentum appeared to shift.
It started with the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning a constitutional right to an abortion, which galvanized the Democratic base, then with a series of Democratic legislative accomplishments like policies to address climate change and a White House plan to forgive some student loan debt. The gains, coupled with a Department of Justice investigation of Trump’s handling of classified documents that put him back at the top of mind of voters, appeared to change the conditions.
By August, Biden’s approval rating was up to 44% according to Gallup, higher than Trump’s August approval rating in 2018 and President Barack Obama’s August approval rating in 2014, and Democrats had an advantage on the generic ballot — where voters are asked which party they would rather control Congress.
The shift has put Adkins on the defensive, particularly on abortion after Kansans turned out in large margins to reject a state constitutional amendment that would eliminate the right to an abortion.
She penned an op-ed in The Kansas City Star in an attempt to define her positions on abortion — saying clearly that she does not support a federal ban on the procedure. It was the most direct the Republican candidate, who was the campaign manager and chair of the Kansas Republican Party under staunch abortion opponent Sam Brownback, has been on the issue.
Maggie Abboud, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, dismissed that any Democratic momentum might help Davids and that it even exists at all, pointing to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that still had Biden’s approval rating at 38%.
“There has been zero polling showing a surge in support for Sharice Davids,” Abboud said. “Kansas families know the economic pain they are feeling is a direct result of Sharice Davids’ failed agenda and that’s not going to change.”
Both Adkins' and Davids’ campaigns hew strictly to their talking points. For Davids, the emphasis is on abortion and Adkins’ ties to Brownback. For Adkins, the emphasis is on the economy and immigration at the southern border.
“It’s no surprise that the more voters learn about Amanda Adkins’ extreme, no-exceptions record on reproductive rights and her involvement in Governor Brownback’s failed economic scheme, the more they are motivated to stop her from bringing her dangerous views to Congress,” said Ellie Turner, a spokeswoman for Davids.
The Adkins campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
What issues are resonating in the race?
Republicans are trying to emphasize two issues — immigration and the economy. This week Adkins went on a trip to McAllen, Texas, as part of a group of Republican women who are running for Congress. Her campaign has tried to highlight fentanyl overdoses as a way to criticize Democrats for being soft on crime.
Then there’s inflation. While gas prices have continued to fall over the summer, prices are still up on a number of other goods, forcing Americans to pay more and putting a dent in any wage increases people have seen over the past few years.
“Third district voters are paying more for everything — gas, dinner, the student loan debt of Ivy League grads — and are going to be much more concerned about their member of Congress voting lockstep with the guy who’s causing those problems than what the guy who was governor five years ago said and did,” said Pat Leopold, a Republican consultant based in Kansas who has managed multiple GOP congressional campaigns.
Former Gov. Jeff Colyer, a Republican who lives in Johnson County, said this isn’t the first time Democrats have expressed confidence about an election, only to lose seats in November. He said people feel that the country is going in the wrong direction and will vote on who they think will be able to fix things.
“We’ve seen this pattern before, so this is not anything new,” Colyer said. “I think the real question, though, is, I think most Kansans in the 3rd District don’t want a generic R or a generic D, they want to have somebody who will respond to the needs of our community.”
Miller, the University of Kansas professor, said this election may be different from other midterms, largely because of norm-shattering political events like the U.S. Supreme Court eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion.
“I think that reaction is playing out to the benefit of Democrats,” Miller said. “It’s obviously not going to make this midterm a Democratic victory, I don’t think, but if it makes it less bad, or if it makes it more of a neutral election and if that’s something that sticks throughout the course of the campaign, I think that will be different and interesting.”
Democrats are leaning heavily on abortion as a motivator for their base.
Christopher Reeves, a former Kansas Democratic National Committee member, said the Supreme Court ruling has fired up the Democratic base. He pointed to the August vote on an amendment to remove the right to an abortion from the Kansas Constitution, which drove up voter turnout. In Johnson County, there was a 53.7% turnout to vote on the amendment.
“I think if you’re Sharice Davids, you look at that primary return, and you’re excited about what’s out there,” Reeves said. “You’re saying to yourself, ‘Look, Johnson County is seeing the fact that Republicans bet so big on these Trumpian ideas, and it’s just not gonna fly.’”
State Rep. Stephanie Clayton, an Overland Park Democrat who switched parties after the 2018 election, also said the issue of abortion had shifted the momentum in the race in Democrats’ favor.
“Most conservatives are actually very libertarian. And so when they see that kind of movement, away from letting them mind their own business, and then towards government running their lives, then they are starting to take a second look at Democratic candidates,” Clayton said.
Still, Republicans argue that even Democratic momentum won’t be enough to stop their party from picking up seats in November.
“Just because it isn’t looking like the tidal wave that was about to hit six months ago doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a good year for Republicans,” Leopold. “Politically everything has come up roses for Democrats over the past couple of months and they are still expected to lose the House by a decent margin.”
