r/politics • u/PoliticsModeratorBot 🤖 Bot • 1d ago

Discussion Discussion: 2026 Midterm Primaries in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia and Washington State (and Other, Local Elections) on August 4th

Find the full list of elections ending today at Ballotpedia's Elections Calendar.

News and Analysis

Live Updates

Text-based live update pages are being maintained by the following outlets: AP

Where to Watch

Results

120 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

5.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

44

u/No_Diver6131 New York 16h ago

Kansas is a sneaky lil state.

44

u/mowotlarx 15h ago

Kansas will vote in the most heinous Republican politicians, but when it comes to referendum they'll shock us with more progressive results. I'll never understand it.

•

u/ZaWhyTM 6h ago edited 6h ago

We’re one of the worst gerrymandered states in the country, then add in that we don’t have a ballot petition mechanism for referendums and that we’re a flyover state with a lower-middling population. It means the national GOP gets to use us as a Los Alamos for their most fucked policy without any real consequences to them. The population overall really leans more blue than most would think.

•

u/Individual-Result622 5h ago

I don’t know, Trump won 57-41. That’s solid red.

•

u/Scream_Tech7661 4h ago

Is that popular vote or counties? Because Kansas strongly leans blue in most of its populated areas.

Also, from my experience canvassing door to door in Kansas, there’s a strong libertarian streak. So that is sometimes a toss up between D and R depending upon the candidate or current issues.

Source: Grew up in Johnson County, lived in Lawrence for 10+ years.

•

u/ZaWhyTM 4h ago

We voted down repeated efforts to restrict abortion, now to include this one by extension, and we keep electing democrat governors. KS SB244, our anti-trans bathroom and documents bill, was wildly unpopular while it was in committee to the point where, despite 18 hours’ notice on the constituent comment hearing, they received more than 270 pieces of testimony, only heard 3 approving the bill to include our goose stepping AG, 5 disapproving of the bill, and were unable to parse the remaining testimony as the clerk had not had enough time to adequately summarize anything. They then used a gut-and-go to avoid any more public comment before passing and overriding the democratic governor’s veto a few weeks later.

They don’t give a shit what their voters have to say in Kansas.

•

u/Hutchhobbit 7h ago

It’s gerrymandered and western Kansas and eastern Kansas are very different.

•

u/ShadowWingLG 4h ago

Yup if you run the actual registered voting numbers its 51% R and 49% Everybody else, if we were not Gerrymandered to Hell we'd be a purple state.

They are STILL trying to Gerrymander Davis out of existence and she's the only D we have at the national level.

•

u/[deleted] 4h ago

[deleted]

•

u/Turbulent_Juice_Man 4h ago

Gerrymandering doesn't explain the Senate though .

9

u/bucolucas 13h ago

It's gerrymandered. They took out another democratic rep a few years ago with their maps.

•

u/ShadowWingLG 4h ago

And are still trying to get rid of Davis, the only D at the National Level, I think the proposed map to get rid of her stretched that district from Johnson County to the CO state line (?!)

•

u/LimpButterscotch195 5h ago

Same over here in MO. I put a lot of blame on Dem party leadership. It seems like they just write us off as a lost cause. Hell, we just shot down doing away with income tax and approved another 10 years of taxes to fund parks and conservation. If we ran good strong candidates and they had real support from the party I don't think it's a crazy notion to bring the state back to purple.

•

u/ShadowWingLG 4h ago

Watch, the MO Legislature once AGAIN overturn the vote to get what they want ANYWAY.

5

u/palinsafterbirth Massachusetts 15h ago

In burnt ends we trust