Three Republicans are running to defeat Sharice Davids in Kansas. Do they have a chance?

One is a doctor. Another owns a heating and cooling business. The third has spent more than a decade as a police officer.

All three are seeking to take on Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids next year. They face an uphill battle in a suburban district that has trended away from Republicans in recent elections.

Currently in her third term, Davids has demonstrated a firm grip on Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District, which encompasses much of the Kansas side of the Kansas City metro area. Even after the GOP-controlled state Legislature redrew the district to include more rural areas, Davids won reelection in 2022 by 12 points — her strongest margin of victory ever.

A little more than a year away from the general election — and just over nine months from the primary election — the Republican field is taking shape. Three candidates have entered the race but one, Prasanth Reddy, has quickly gained a sizable financial advantage.

Reddy, a physician who was an executive at Labcorp until this summer, amassed more than $313,000 in contributions since launching his campaign in July, according to a campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission earlier this month.

The other candidates, business owner Karen Crnkovich and Kansas City, Kansas, police officer Jonathon Westbrook both reported about $90,000 in contributions. The bulk of Westbrook’s cash comes from a $66,000 contribution he made to his own campaign, while Crnkovich contributed $9,940 to her bid. Reddy has contributed $2,144 to his campaign.

Reddy’s campaign said his fundraising haul was the most any Kansas congressional candidate had ever raised in the first quarter of their campaign. Still, it pales in comparison to the more than $571,000 raised by Davids in the last three months, part of a war chest of $1.2 million cash on hand as of late September.

In an interview, Reddy said his life experiences put him in a position to understand complicated issues and craft solutions in a thoughtful way. Reddy immigrated to the United States from India as a child and is certified in internal medicine, medical oncology and hematology. He is a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve.

“One of the things I’d say as a doc is we start with listening, right? We start to listen. We don’t go right to a prescription,” Reddy said.

Republicans nominated Amanda Adkins, a former Cerner executive, the past two elections — 2020 and 2022. Adkins was a big name among Kansas Republicans, known for successfully leading the Kansas Republican Party to major victories between 2009 and 2013 as its chairwoman.

Despite her name recognition and political experience, Adkins lost both races by more than 10 points.

“I think any objective observer has to look at this race and you have to feel like Congresswoman Davids is a very strong frontrunner in this race,” said state Sen. Ethan Corson, a Fairway Democrat.

Johnson County’s shift

Johnson County, the most populous county in the 3rd District and Kansas as a whole, has become increasingly Democratic in the past roughly 10 years, in a change reflected up and down the ballot. Former President Donald Trump narrowly won the county in 2016 before losing it in 2020. At the same time, Democrats have grown the ranks of Johnson County state legislators as moderate Republicans have switched parties.

Crnkovich, who owns a heating and cooling business and has been the president of the Junior League of Kansas City, Missouri, plans to pitch herself as a different type of candidate — someone who cares more about representing their district than about being a politician.

She said she wants to attract the conservative Republican base, as well as moderates who have voted for Davids in recent years.

“My message is resonating — common sense, someone who has business experience,” Crnkovich said. “I’m doing this because I care about the voters, I care about serving our citizens. I don’t care about being a politician. I’m doing it to serve.”

Westbrook, a Kansas City, Kansas, police sergeant, has spent 16 years in law enforcement and was an adjunct instructor at Donnelly College, initially expressed an openness to an interview, but didn’t respond to subsequent messages. His campaign website promotes local control of schools, lower taxes, term limits and support for law enforcement, among other issues.

Changing abortion politics

Any Republican effort to win back centrists will likely have to offer an approach to abortion access that doesn’t alienate voters who last year chose to protect statewide abortion rights by a landslide. Nearly 60% of Kansas voters rejected a state constitutional amendment that would have allowed the Kansas Legislature to ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right to end a pregnancy.

Nationally, Democrats have signaled they plan to continue emphasizing abortion in 2024. Some Republicans in Congress have backed a national abortion ban.

“Rep. Davids is focused on fighting for families and delivering real results for the Kansas Third – supporting veterans, lowering the cost of health care, and bringing good paying jobs to Kansas. That’s what she’ll continue to do while Republicans fight it out in a crowded race to the right to find the most extreme, anti-abortion candidate. Rep. Davids will never shy away from where she stands on abortion rights,” Davids campaign spokesperson Mohona Chowdhury said in a statement.

Chowdhury noted that nearly 70% of voters in the 3rd District voted against the amendment and accused Republican candidates of hiding from their own votes on the amendment.

Reddy said he is “pro-life,” but supports exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother and “fetal abnormalities inconsistent with life.” He said he didn’t cast a vote on the amendment, saying he was unclear on whether the amendment would have protected exceptions.

“From my perspective, you know, there was a lot of money spent. Like many Kansans, I was pretty unclear as to exactly what that represented and I was not willing to support anything that didn’t clearly support exceptions,” Reddy said.

If passed, the Kansas amendment would have added language to the state constitution to take away the right to have an abortion, which would have allowed the Legislature to pass more restrictions.

He said Kansans had “made their voices clear and I will always respect that.”

Asked how he would vote on a national abortion ban, Reddy said it’s a “states’ rights issue.” After the interview, a campaign spokesperson called The Star to say Reddy would vote no on a national abortion ban.

Crnkovich said she was open to a discussion about a bill imposing national restrictions on abortion, but she said she couldn’t say at what gestational age abortion should be restricted without a bill in front of her.

Broadly, she said she supports exceptions for rape, incest and health of the mother and wanted to see a broader conversation about redefining the term so removal of a non-viable pregnancy was not considered abortion.

“The left wants us to keep talking about abortion. In the meantime they bankrupt our country, leave the borders open and our kids aren’t being educated, or standards are slipping,” she said.

“I will always pray that babies are born. I am also pro-compassion and empathy. So I’m for exceptions like rape and incest, I am for protecting the health of the mother.”

The amendment vote altered the political landscape surrounding abortion in Kansas, said Bob Beatty, a political science professor at Washburn University who closely follows Kansas elections. The vote demonstrated voters in the 3rd District are not in favor of banning abortion — changing the calculus for Republican candidates.

“That makes it much more difficult for Republicans who thought they understood the abortion issue in Kansas, and now it’s the Republican candidate who has to figure out what to do with that issue. It used to be the Democrats,” Beatty said.

Trump effect?

Some Republicans say frustrations with President Joe Biden, who is running for reelection next year, are lending their side new energy. Many voters are uneasy about Biden’s age (Biden is 80 and Trump is 77), and conservatives have attacked the president over the Department of Justice’s decision to indict Trump on allegations surrounding efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents after leaving office, even though charging decisions have been made independently by prosecutors.

“What I was hearing wasn’t necessarily accolades for his top-notch ability to fundraise so much as it was, ‘oh my gosh, the voters are so fired up, they’re already fired up for the 3rd District race,’” state Rep. William Sutton, a Gardner Republican, said of Reddy.

Others predict if Trump is the Republican nominee for president, he will severely hamper GOP efforts to win back the 3rd District. Stephanie Sharp, a Johnson County political strategist who has worked with moderate Republicans, said many Republicans see the “writing on the wall.”

“As long as Trump is on the ballot for Republicans, Johnson County is just screwed for the Republican Party,” Sharp said.

Crnkovich said she would support any Republican nominee for president but acknowledged that Trump may complicate the congressional race if the former president wins the GOP nominee.

“He is a very polarizing individual and in our very purple district I think that it will definitely have winners and losers in terms of the individual voters and how they see things,” she said.

Reddy didn’t directly say whether he supports Trump, saying “we’re still far away from understanding who that potential Republican nominee might be.” Trump has consistently held a substantial lead over his Republican rivals, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in major polls of GOP voters.

However, Reddy had sharp words for the current fighting among congressional Republicans over who should be the next House speaker after lawmakers ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California two weeks ago.

“Get your work done,” Reddy said. He didn’t say who he would support for speaker if he was in Congress, but said the way McCarthy was removed was a “mistake” that had hurt the country.

Crnkovich also would not say who she would support in the speaker race, but said she would be the type of congressperson who focused on getting work done, rather than fundraising and social media.

“Washington is broken,” she said.

The Star’s Luke Nozicka contributed reporting