Kansas Democrat Sharice Davids overcomes expected GOP wave to win third term in House

Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids won her rematch against Republican Amanda Adkins in Kansas Tuesday, focusing heavily on preserving abortion rights to secure her third term in the U.S. House.

Already the only Democrat in the Kansas delegation, Davids may face the tougher task of legislating as a member of the minority party in Congress for the first time, with Republicans poised to potentially take control of the U.S. House.

Flanked by family, Davids took the stage at 10:30 pm to raucous applause.

“We have been facing challenge after challenge over these last few years but we have met every one of those challenges head on,” Davids said. “We didn’t run away, we didn’t point fingers, we didn’t try to blame everybody, we got to work. And tonight, that work paid off.”

Davids lead Adkins by 12 percentage points with 714 of 757 precincts reporting, according to the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office. All of the remaining precincts are in Miami County

The margin refutes the district’s status as one of the most competitive in the country. The race attracted millions in outside spending from national Republican and Democratic groups as they attempted to sway the suburban voters who helped elect President Joe Biden.

The Republican-controlled Legislature attempted to make the district more competitive by taking Democratic-leaning voters from the northern half of Wyandotte County out of the district and added more Republican-leaning voters in Miami, Franklin and Anderson Counties.

“Despite stacking the deck and instituting a major partisan gerrymander, Sharice Davids has prevailed,” said state Rep. Stephanie Clayton, a Democrat from Overland Park. “Due to the fact that she has spent time listening to all of her constituents, regardless of party, and I think that she is reflective of the needs of the district.”

In an era of eye-popping campaign scandals and polarized campaign tactics, the contest came off as tame. While the candidates accused each other of being either dishonest or untrustworthy, they both tried to play up their Kansas nice.

To win over independents in the district, both candidates served up cookie cutter campaigns fed by their national parties’ talking points. Adkins focused on the economy, crime and immigration; Davids pointed to threats to the country’s democratic norms and protecting abortion rights in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion.

Hoping to sustain the momentum of Kansans voting to reject a ballot measure that would have eliminated the right to an abortion in the Kansas constitution, Davids’ campaign repeatedly claimed that Adkins would support a federal ban on abortion, despite Adkins’ repeated denials. Adkins supported a Republican policy plan that included a federal ban on abortion.

“The people of Johnson county and CD-3 and the state as a whole want good governance, not extremism. They want people who will lead with integrity,” said Deann Mitchell, the chairwoman of the Johnson County Democratic Party. “The (abortion) vote in August reinforced that knowledge. Kansans know what’s on the ballot tonight and they know that what happened in August is connected to the election tonight.”

Davids and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent millions trying to spur voter turnout, particularly among young women, a demographic that turned out particularly strong to defeat the ballot measure in August. Democratic groups outspent Republican groups by around $4 million in their effort to help Davids keep control of her seat in Congress.

“We owned the ground,” said Lauren Garrett, Davids’ campaign manager. “We knocked on the doors or called or reached out to 1.2 million people.”

While Davids often highlighted her bipartisan credentials – she spent several months leading up to the election touring the district to talk about money that had been secured for projects in bills like the American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure bill – she also tried to paint Adkins as an extremist by association.

Along with criticizing Adkins for campaigning with Sen. Ted Cruz, who was among the senators who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden, who has made unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud in the district, Davids frequently tied Adkins to former Gov. Sam Brownback.

Adkins managed Brownback’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign and was the chairwoman of the Kansas Republican Party when Brownback was governor. He was unpopular when he left office because of a failed experiment in cutting taxes that left many public services underfunded.

Adkins, meanwhile, attempted to tie Davids to Biden as she focused her message on inflation, promising to take a conservative approach to the federal budget. While the economic message, combined with criticism over crime and immigration, worked in other parts of the country, it fell short in Kansas.

“When it comes to public service, I want you all to have courage,” Adkins said in her concession speech. “I want you to step forward and always value the dignity and purpose of every single human being on this planet.”

Adkins mentioned crime on the campaign trail – using fentanyl overdoses to talk about immigration at the southern border – but the message appeared to carry less weight in the suburban district compared to the high gas prices voters were seeing every day.

Davids distanced herself from inflation by talking about some of the efforts she made to bring down costs, including a failed push to suspend the federal gas tax and legislation that attempts to address the supply chain issues that are contributing to high prices.

She noted that her mother had served in the Army for 20 years and had been stationed in Germany when the Berlin Wall came down. She drew a comparison to current American events.

“When history called on us, this community answered proudly,” Davids said. “When we had people calling our elections into question, we stood firm in defense of our democracy. When they were trying to take our rights and put women and families in danger, we voted no. And when they sought to divide us, we came together.”

Star reporters Jonathan Shorman, Katie Bernard, Jenna Thompson and David Hudnall contributed reporting.