In abortion vote, Johnson County looks less Republican. But it’s the GOP that’s changed
American politics is changing, and you can see why in Johnson County, Kansas.
Just look at Tuesday’s returns. The county that gave Republican pro-lifer Mitt Romney 155,000 votes in 2012 delivered fewer than 77,000 votes for abortion restrictions just 10 years later.
Johnson Countians voted for Joe Biden in 2020. They provided Gov. Laura Kelly’s margin over Kris Kobach in 2018, and Rep. Sharice Davids’ victory over Kevin Yoder the same year. Now the abortion vote.
While pockets of conservative votes still exist, the county is clearly marching slowly away from Donald Trump Republicanism and toward — something else. It’s an extraordinarily important trend, mirrored in suburban communities across the country.
American politics are realigning in profound ways. And how the two major parties understand the shift, and react to it, will inform our government for a generation, perhaps more, certainly in Kansas but in other states too.
How did it happen?
College-educated, high-earning suburban voters were once the backbone of the GOP. They wanted good schools and low taxes, and — let’s be clear — tacit racial segregation (I grew up in Johnson County. I know.)
But the world is changing. Johnson County, like the nation, is becoming more diverse. In 2021, 30% of Johnson County’s K-12 students were Black, Hispanic, Asian or multi-ethnic. Their parents — the bankers, lawyers, accountants, and doctors who once ruled GOP politics — are moving firmly to elect Democrats, and embrace rights such as abortion.
The flip is unsettling and weird. And it’s complicated by Donald Trump, who complicates everything.
Johnson Countians haven’t suddenly turned into wild-eyed leftists. They aren’t moving away from Republicans as much as Republicans are moving away from them. Young families want the same things they’ve always wanted, and they’re busy: building homes, and futures, and raising happy, well-educated kids.
Trumpism exhausts them. They know the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, and they’re tired of hearing it was. They’re tired of endless culture wars and potty-mouthed tweets. They want politicians to focus on real-world problems like schools and roads, not bizarre constitutional theory.
And they’re deeply suspicious of government intrusion on personal decisions like abortion.
Trumpists don’t like this, of course. Tuesday they blamed the abortion defeat on a nasty media and outside spending, which are ridiculous excuses. Pro-lifers picked the ballot language and the date for the election, and had just as much money as pro-choicers.
They had two years to make their case. They also had large parts of the Catholic Church, which was willing to accept a certain flexibility of facts to get their way. Johnson Countians, and Kansans, still said no.
Can Tuesday’s pro-choice energy be transferred to climate change, or the economy? It isn’t clear. Will voters be distracted in the future by relatively marginal disputes over transgender athletes and school curricula? There’s plenty of time, and plenty of ways, for Democrats to fumble this opportunity away.
Republicans have a choice to make, too: Embrace Trump, again, or not. Pick Trump again and they will lose Johnson County, and counties like it, for a generation.
Tuesday’s lesson seems obvious. When voters are convinced they have a direct interest in a policy decision, they turn out in droves to protect their rights, and embrace equality. The party that can convince voters it can deliver on those interests will prevail.
This story was originally published August 3, 2022 at 1:12 PM.
