Republicans used to run against two candidates in Kansas.
The Democratic nominee.
And Barack Obama.
Just four years ago, Kansas Republicans ran against Obama as much as they did Democrat Paul Davis in the governor’s race.
They ran against Obamacare. They ran against Obama’s environmental policy. They ran against government spending.
In short, Obama was all that was wrong with Kansas as far as Republicans were concerned. After all, it “was the Kansas way, not the Obama way.”
Out of office more than a year, Obama is back, supporting Democrat Sharice Davids in her bid to upset four-term Republican incumbent Rep. Kevin Yoder in the Kansas City suburbs. Two years ago, Obama took sides against Yoder, backing Democrat Jay Sidie, who finished with about 41 percent of the vote.
Davids embraces the former president, who not too long ago was a poison pill for Democrats — and moderate Republicans — running in Kansas. Joining Obama in supporting Davids is former Vice President Joe Biden.
“I’m proud to have his endorsement as I seek to serve the people of Kansas in Congress,” Davids said of Obama in a statement.
“We share the goals of expanding opportunities to everyone in our community, increasing access to affordable healthcare and ensuring a quality public education is available to all of our kids.”
Over the past six years — at the height of the conservative revolution in Kansas — gloomy mailers featuring Obama were delivered to mailboxes across the state. Many times the GOP won, most notably in Davis’ loss to former Gov. Sam Brownback.
“Obama ideologically is far, far away from the median Republican voter in Kansas, so I’m sure a lot of voters did see his policy agenda as a threat,” said former Fort Hays State University political scientist Chapman Rackaway.
“Republicans in that state were really effective at identifying a target population and following through to get them to the polls,” said Rackaway, who now teaches political science at the University of West Georgia. “It certainly seems as if Obama was an effective lever for them to push their Republican rank-and-file out to the polls.”
But there’s now a new look for Democrats who are on the offensive this cycle, buoyed by President Donald Trump who evokes a more visceral reaction than the former president.
Like several years ago when Republicans juiced up their base with Obama, Democrats can now use Trump as their foil, especially in the 3rd Congressional District where many voters think the country is on the wrong track.
Trump, not Obama, is now a touchstone, giving Democrats someone to rally their base against, especially in the Kansas City suburbs where the not-so-popular president backed Yoder.
“It’s really hard to attack Obama right now with the current person in the White House,” said Chris Reeves, a national committeeman for the Kansas Democratic Party. “There’s some nostalgia no matter who is in office for the guy before.”
Reeves and others compare Obama to George W. Bush, whose popularity sank at the end of his term. Within a couple years of leaving office, he was viewed more favorably.
“Once a president is out of office, you will historically see the popularity of former presidents continue to grow,” said Kelly Arnold, chairman of the Kansas Republican Party.
“When we were going after Obama, he was the one leading the charge for the policies that we felt Kansans didn’t support.”
Looking at the 3rd District race, Democrats are quick to point out that Hillary Clinton barely carried the 3rd District in 2016 over Trump. Some say that suggests Obama might win that district if he were running today.
However, Republicans point out that Republican Mitt Romney won the district by 10 percentage points in 2012 and that Trump won Johnson County in 2016.
However, polling shows that 3rd District voters are unhappy with the country’s trajectory. It also shows that Trump is less popular there than anywhere else in Kansas.
A poll out last week by Remington Research showed Trump with a 49 percent favorable rating statewide in Kansas. In the 3rd Congressional District, the president was viewed favorably by 44 percent of those polled. Nowhere was it lower.
Likewise, 53 percent of 3rd District voters thought the country was on the wrong track — the highest of any congressional district in the state.
In a sense, Johnson County and the 3rd District are emerging as blue country in a red state, said Washburn University political scientist Bob Beatty.
“In an amazingly short amount of time, the 3rd District has turned into something we don’t see in Kansas, which is essentially a Clinton-Obama district,” Beatty said. “It’s absolutely remarkable.”
Beatty said evidence of that can be traced to comments Yoder has made indicating he’s will to work with any president — even Obama — if it means getting something done for the district.
“When did we ever hear that before?” Beatty asked.
Yoder campaign officials say the congressman has never beat the drum against Obama.
They don’t see Obama as being as much of a lightning rod within the 3rd District as maybe elsewhere in the state.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, however, has figured larger in this election than Obama. The super political action committee that’s been pouring money into the race labeled her a “Pelosi liberal.”
Some veteran Republican strategists are skeptical that Obama — or Biden for that matter — accomplishes much for Davids.
They say the endorsement might help energize voters in Wyandotte County with a strong base of Democratic voters. They are doubtful it will do more — and might even backfire.
“Obama and Biden continue to be polarizing public figures as Republicans continue to view their administration as a failure,” said political consultant Jared Suhn, who worked on the Brownback campaign in 2014.
“Their involvement will undoubtedly motivate many Republicans to engage more actively in the closing weeks,” Suhn said.
David Kensinger, Brownback’s top lieutenant, said he thinks Obama is still out of step with Kansas.
“Even in the 3rd District, he only ran strong there when presenting himself as post-partisan,” Kensinger said in a text.
“Once it became clear that his agenda was just warmed-over Cook County, Ill. big government, his support collapsed and never recovered,” Kensinger wrote, referring to where Obama has called home in Chicago.
Reeves and others, however, believe Trump presents more problems for Republicans such as Yoder who are trying to win over moderate Republicans.
Reeves said he thinks Trump now plays worse with voters than Obama, who is now out of power and no longer presents the same policy problems for voters.
“There are a lot of moderates who are in the boat of, ‘Geez, even if we had issues with Obama, Obama wasn’t involved in these kind of crazy hijinks,’ ” Reeves said in contrasting the former president with Trump.
Rackaway speculates that if any other Republican were president, Yoder might be in a different situation than where he is today trailing in the polls.
“If you had a different president than Trump,” Rackaway said, “by all accounts Yoder might be safe this time around — or at the very least not with the sword of Damocles hanging over his head.”
