Did Dennis Pyle swing the governor race? Five takeaways from elections in KS and MO

The anticipated red wave broke before it reached the shore Tuesday. It didn’t even touch Johnson County.

Nationally, Democrats defied expectations on Election Day, limiting Republican gains in Congress in a year when discontent over the economy and frustration with President Joe Biden was expected to shift the balance of power in Washington.

In Kansas, Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids improved on her past margins, even after the Kansas Legislature added more Republicans to her district, with a 12-point rout in her rematch against Amanda Adkins.

The statewide races in Kansas were much closer with the contests for Kansas governor and attorney general too close to call on election night. Winners emerged the following morning with Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly narrowly winning reelection and Republican Kris Kobach cementing a political comeback with his win in the tight attorney general race.

Meanwhile in Missouri, Republican Eric Schmitt became the latest attorney general to make the jump in the Senate, a well-trodden path that was also followed by Schmitt’s immediate predecessor Josh Hawley just four years ago.

In addition to choosing between red and blue, Missouri voters also picked green last night as the state becomes the latest to legalize recreational marijuana in a big win for the established medical marijuana industry.

The Pyle effect

State Sen. Dennis Pyle, an independent who left the Republican Party this year, garnered 2% in the race for governor. But the conservative firebrand definitely had an effect on the contest between Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and Republican challenger Derek Schmidt, the state attorney general.

Pyle had more than 19,000 votes as of Wednesday morning, a total that was larger than Kelly’s lead over Schmidt of less than 15,000. On top of Pyle, Libertarian Seth Cordell garnered nearly 11,000 votes.

The independent and third party candidates may have doomed Republicans’ chances at retaking the governor’s mansion. Kansas Republican state chair Mike Kuckelman was castigating Pyle as Schmidt and Kelly left their election night parties without a clear winner.

A point of comparison will be the race for attorney general in which Kelly’s 2018 opponent, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach held a lead of roughly 23,000 over Democrat Chris Mann in a head-to-head matchup that did not feature any other contenders.

Pyle may find few friends in the Republican caucus in Topeka during next year’s legislative session as Kelly enters a second term after an alection that was expected to be good for Republicans.

Redistricting didn’t break Davids’ hold on the Kansas City suburbs

Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids easily defeated Republican Amanda Adkins despite an attempt by the Republican-controlled Legislature to make Kansas 3rd Congressional District more competitive.

The new lines cut out some of the most reliably Democratic voters from Wyandotte County, while adding Republican-leaning rural voters in Franklin, Miami and Anderson counties. It shifted the district from one Biden won by 10 percentage points in 2020 to one he won by just four.

Still, Davids increased her 2020 margin over Adkins, winning by 12 percentage points and defying expectations that the district would be more competitive as Republicans hammered the Democratic Party over high inflation.

National Democratic groups outspent the Republicans by about $4 million as the Davids’ campaign made the race about abortion rights, attempting to build on the momentum from the August vote to reject a ballot measure that would have eliminated the right to an abortion from the Kansas constitution.

Throughout the campaign, Davids portrayed Adkins as too extreme for the district and was aided by the Adkins campaign’s decision to have her appear with conservative stalwarts like Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Missouri continues to slide red with another GOP Senate win

Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly elected Eric Schmitt to the U.S. Senate after the Republican ran a campaign that centered on his barrage of legal challenges as the state’s attorney general.

The Republican was able to win easily without making major appeals to Democrats and independents. Instead, Schmitt aggressively courted the base of former President Donald Trump through a seemingly endless string of lawsuits that pushed back against everything from COVID-19 safety precautions to the policies of President Joe Biden.

Schmitt’s landslide victory illustrated the Republican Party’s strong hold in Missouri — a state that was once considered the bellwether of the nation. Political observers say Schmitt will be similar to Republican Josh Hawley, his predecessor as attorney general who now regularly proposes provocative legislation with close to zero chance of passage.

Ballot initiatives strike again in Missouri with legal weed

While Missouri voters sent Schmitt to the Senate, they also approved a constitutional amendment that legalizes recreational marijuana for adults over the age of 21 and expunges nonviolent criminal offenses.

The vote is the latest example of Missouri voters supporting a progressive statewide issue at the ballot box despite being represented by Republican supermajorities in both chambers of the Missouri General Assembly.

Liberal groups have had success using constitutional amendments to enact policies previously blocked by the GOP-dominated legislature. The passage of recreational marijuana follows the passage of medical marijuana in 2018 and the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in 2020 through the same ballot initiative process.

Statewide vote ensures KCPD funding measure passes over city’s objections

Voters across the state of Missouri Tuesday resoundingly supported an amendment to the state constitution that will require Kansas City to spend more money on its police force.

Kansas City voters, however, overwhelmingly rejected the ballot question.

The vote illustrated how a statewide electorate much more conservative and much less racially diverse than Kansas City was willing to make a decision that only affected police funding in one city. Missouri is 78.7% white and just over 16.5% of residents are Black or Hispanic. Kansas City is 55.1% white with Black or Hispanic populations totaling more than 38%.

Critics had consistently argued that allowing voters in faraway places such as Cape Girardeau and Springfield to vote on the measure was nothing more than the state asserting dominance over a more diverse, progressive city. Others argued that the ballot question — which did not specifically mention Kansas City – was written deceptively to convince voters that the amendment would affect all police departments.