Few states have had as tumultuous a history as Kansas has. Located in the geographic center of the Lower 48, and as a more unassuming state overall, Kansas has actually played a central role in almost every major political era and event in the United States.
Early History – Heart of the Great Plains
Kansas was first explored by Europeans as early as 1541. This was the first time Native Americans had seen horses, which they later obtained from the Spaniards and completely changed their way of life. Kansas was included in the Louisiana Purchase and had been mostly unsettled. Lewis and Clark as well as Zebulon Pike mapped the area and called it the “Great American Desert,” a label that would chart Kansas’ history for the next fifty years as a relocation grounds for Native tribes.
Fort Leavenworth became the first permanent European settlement in Kansas in 1827 as the country’s westernmost military outpost as a line of defense for the Santa Fe Trail, a branch of the Oregon Trail. Because of the Trails’ confluence in Kansas, the state became a crucial stopover for pioneers heading west. Initially, Kansas was only for transplanted Native tribes and completely closed off to whites. As white settlers began squatting on the land and more forts along the Oregon Trail were built, petitions to open the territory to settlement began. When the Kansas-Nebraska Territory was formed, Natives were then moved south to present-day Oklahoma.
Civil War – Bleeding Kansas
Kansas’ role in the Civil War is unparalleled by that of any other state. The admission of the territory repealed the Missouri Compromise, which delineated slave states from free states at the 36th Parallel. Instead, the legality of slavery would be decided by popular sovereignty, wherein residents would vote on the issue. Within days of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, pro-slavery Missourians crossed the border into Kansas to gain the upper hand to make the Kansas-Nebraska Territory a slave territory. In response, Massachusetts sent anti-slavery settlers, known as “Free Staters” – later Jayhawks – along with settlers from other Midwestern states to change the balance of power. New Englanders founded Topeka – now the capital – as well as Manhattan and Lawrence, both college towns, the latter of which is home to the University of Kansas.
Settlers didn’t resort to violence until pro-slavery forces stuffed ballot boxes and elected a pro-slavery Territorial Legislature. The ensuing period of violence and war between the two forces would start a period known as “Bleeding Kansas,” which was essentially the preamble to the Civil War overall.
Several state constitutions were presented with varying levels of progressivism and conservatism. Eventually, the Wyandotte Constitution resulted in the formation and admission of Kansas as a free state on January 29, 1861. Once Kansas was admitted as a free state, the period of Bleeding Kansas was over, but the Civil War was just about to begin.
Despite Kansas having started the war with virtually no military organization, the state would actually suffer the highest amount of fatalities than any other state involved.
Kansas’ first election was in 1864, in which it proved to be Abraham Lincoln’s (R-IL) best state that year; he captured 79% of the vote. Today, it remains the strongest presidential performance in the state’s history.
Kansas’ political history going forward is fairly simple: Since its inception in 1864, the state has only backed six Democrats to the present day, four of which were in landslide elections.
Populist Era & Industrialization – The Center of a Movement
Kansas’ favorable climate, fertile ground, cheap land, and construction of the Kansas Pacific Railway would see the population skyrocket. More people would flock to the state in the thirty years after the Civil War than they would over the next 110 years. Cattle ranching became a big industry since railroads didn’t reach Texas after the Civil War as the state also became a Union haven for freedmen fleeing the South. In addition to social libertarianism – at the time – the state was deeply religious. Kansas was the first state to amend its constitution to prohibit the sale of all alcoholic beverages in 1881. Today, the state has twenty-nine semi-dry counties. The city of Topeka is also the birthplace of the phrase “What would Jesus do?” as well as the de facto home of the Pentecostalist movement.
Harsh weather and dry topsoil from wheat farming with very little rain are what contributed to the Dust Bowl, where financially ruined farmers left for California – as depicted in John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men – while others protested under the Populist Era. The era instituted federal aid, crop insurance, new farming techniques, and the movement for coined silver. William Jennings Bryan (D-NE) is one of only six Democratic presidential candidates to carry Kansas since its founding based on these principles.
Kansas was also the center of the Progressive Era, which primarily consisted of conservation, direct primaries, women’s suffrage, railroad regulation, and isolationist foreign policy. 1892 became the first of seven times in which a Republican did not carry Kansas’ electoral votes, as James B. Weaver of Iowa won the state by a slim margin on the Populist ticket.
The tapping of the El Dorado Oil Field near Wichita sharply declined Kansas’ emphasis on wheat, although it is still the nation’s leading producer of wheat today. Already home to an aviation sector, World War II made Wichita, Kansas, the “Air Capital of the World.” With a diversified population and economy, the state’s two biggest cities, Kansas City and Wichita, were put firmly on the map.
Simultaneously, Kansas played host to one of the most significant developments of the Civil Rights Era: the landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown Vs. Board of Education of Topeka, the decision of which declared segregation of schools unconstitutional.
Kansas would narrowly back Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ) in 1912 and 1916 and would not back a Democrat again until FDR’s (D-NY) landslide wins against 1932 and 1936. In 1936, Roosevelt would become the first presidential candidate to win more than 500 electoral votes against Kansas Governor Alf Landon (R).
Kansas would solidly back native son Dwight Eisenhower (R-KS) in 1952 and 1956, currently the only president with historical ties to the state. With less emphasis on organized labor and a dissatisfaction with Democrats’ price manipulation of wheat, Kansas would only back one more Democrat: Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) in 1964. Since then, Kansas has exclusively backed Republicans on the presidential level.
Geography – The Sunflower State
While Kansas does have distinct geographic regions, the rural, small-town politics always dominated the county map, rather than specific geopolitics. Overall, Kansas’ 105 counties have been spotty for either party, but today, the bluest part of the state is Kansas City-based Wyandotte County, which has backed a Democrat in every election since 1932, except for Richard Nixon (R-CA) in 1972. The majority of Kansas’ counties are firmly Republican, due to their agricultural, industrial, and small-town tendencies.
Current Political Leanings – College Town Oases
While Kansas is a firmly Republican state in many ways, its intrinsic populism insulates it from some aspects of the national political stage. Democrats can only overcome the staunch Republican hue of the state on gubernatorial elections, due to these elections being more about candidate quality and local issues. The missteps of former Governor Sam Brownback (R) made it easier for incumbent Laura Kelly (D) to win in the blue year of 2018. She narrowly won re-election in 2022. Kansas also tends to elect its governors in patterns, preferring two terms of one party, and then two of the other.
Kansas currently holds the record for the longest party winning streak for both U.S. Senate seats. No Democrat has held a U.S. Senate from Kansas since 1939. Additionally, only three Democrats have ever held a Senate seat here, the last of whom, George McGill, is the only one to have been elected by direct popular vote. The other two were elected by the state legislature before the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment. Republicans’ winning streak of the Class 2 Senate seat since 1919 makes it the longest active victory streak in the country. Kansas is one of two states, the other being Vermont, in which Democrats have never held both U.S. Senate seats concurrently.
Despite this, Democrats have come close to capturing Senate races here, most notably in 2020. Watchdogs show slipping margins for the GOP in the traditionally-Republican college counties. Joe Biden became the first Democrat since Wilson in 1916 to win Johnson County, home to Olathe, a suburb of Kansas City; the first Democrat to win Shawnee County, home to Topeka, since Bill Clinton in 1992; and the first Democrat to ever win Riley County, home to Manhattan.
Sedgwick County, home to Wichita, the state’s largest city, is still Republican-leaning.
These college towns are small oases for Democrats in a state that has otherwise been averse to them since the Civil War. Ancestral opposition is difficult to overcome, but as the state continues to bleed population, and as the nationally high-ranking suburbs, like Overland Park, continue to attract young voters, it’s possible Democrats could come within striking distance in the Sunflower State within the next twenty years.
Until then, the GOP can revel in its historically-long winning streaks that have yet to be paralleled nationally or upset outright.
