How Election Week 2022 Went Down
Polls in Kansas are about to close, so here’s a quick rundown of three of the big races on the ballot.
Incumbent Rep. Sharice Davids is favored to win in Kansas’s 3rd District tonight. Davids is one of nine openly LGBTQ members of Congress and one of five Native American representatives. She and her opponent, Republican staffer Amanda Adkins, have faced off against each other before for this same seat — but with different district boundaries. The 3rd was redrawn this year to make it more rural, shifting the balance from D+4 to R+3. The shift has brought lots of Democratic spending into the race, in an effort to keep the seat. Spending against Adkins in this race has been big, too, outstripping even the spending in favor of Davids. And money going to a Libertarian candidate also seems to be anti-Adkins.
In the Kansas governor’s race, incumbent Laura Kelly has built her brand on kitchen-table issues like education, Medicaid expansion, high-speed internet access and small-business investment. Her challenger Derek Schmidt, in contrast, has zeroed in on hot-button culture war issues — abortion, gender identity and what he sees as Kelly’s totalitarian COVID-19 policies. She’s slightly favored to win tonight, partly because Schmidt’s approach to this race might be losing him some support among moderate Republicans.
The race for Kansas attorney general features another comeback attempt by former Secretary of State Kris Kobach after losing the 2018 gubernatorial race and the 2020 U.S. Senate election. In keeping with his career-defining themes, Kobach wants to fight illegal immigration, which he blames for everything from voter fraud to terrorism. In contrast, lawyer and former police officer Chris Mann seems to largely be running on a platform of not being Kobach. It’s not a bad strategy, given the number of times Kansans have already rejected Kobach, whose resume includes losing a trial to implement a citizenship voting law and being sent to remedial law classes by the judge. The latest poll has Mann and Kobach running basically neck-and-neck.
There are clearly a few solid reasons to keep an eye on North Carolina’s 13th District, but I may as well add to the list, just for good measure. Hines is also worth watching because he’s a young candidate who aligns incredibly closely with the far right. There’s a general idea — and, to be fair, research to back it — that younger Americans are more liberal as a whole, but someone like Hines clearly challenges that narrative. How young Republicans step into the shoes of the party will be important as Gen Z is starting to come of running-eligible age, and between Hines and Karoline Leavitt in New Hampshire’s 1st District, tonight could be a preview of what is to come down the road.
Right now, there is a lot more support for the abortion-rights position in Kentucky’s ballot amendment (56 percent) than for the Democratic Senate candidate (42 percent). Which, if that continues to be the case, could pose a conundrum for Democrats. It’s a sign, on the one hand, that voters are rejecting stances on abortion that are outside the mainstream — and which many Republicans are embracing. But … they’re not necessarily voting for Democrats as a result.