Is Kansas Gov. Kelly what the faltering Democratic Party needs post-Trump? | Opinion
Is Laura Kelly going to be the face of the Democratic resistance to Donald Trump?
Is Kansas?
That would be astonishing, for lots of reasons. Kelly, who is heading into her last year as Kansas governor, has never seemed temperamentally or tactically inclined toward partisan warfare: She won two terms promising the state’s voters a “middle of the road” approach to the state’s challenges.
And despite Kelly’s election victories, Kansas is famously a GOP-voting red state. You may have heard something about that.
But Kelly is also currently the head of the Democratic Governors Association. It’s a role that requires her to step up on the party’s behalf now and again.
Which is likely why The New York Times’ opinion section on Monday touted Kelly as a possible leader to help shepherd the national Democratic Party as it plots its way back to power after its shocking loss to Trump last November.
Kelly “flies largely below the radar,” The Times’ Michelle Cottle wrote. “It’s time for that to change.”
Why? Because nationally prominent Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and too-slick-for-their-own good types like California Gov. Gavin Newsom have proven “too lefty or too establishment, too partisan, too out-of-touch, too old” to connect with the electorate at large.
If Democrats are going to make a comeback, Cottle argued, they need to spotlight other Democratic governors and “their stories of leadership and of delivering for their states.”
Governors like Kelly, it turns out.
“Governors really don’t have a choice but to get things done,” Kelly told the Times.
That’s where the problem comes in.
‘A world of hurt and concern’
Kelly wasn’t just featured in The Times on Monday. She was also in Politico, for a story about how Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill is going to wreak havoc on the budgets of state governments.
National Republicans are “passing tremendous costs onto the states” — with cuts hitting everything from education and disaster relief to health care and hunger programs.
That is going to put states like Kansas in “a world of hurt and concern,” Kelly told Politico.
Governors such as Kelly are going to have to make politically unpalatable decisions about whether to raise taxes to fill the shortfall or to make cuts in some important areas in order to pick up the spending slack caused by cuts at the federal level.
It will be tough either way, for Kelly and every other governor in the country.
“We don’t put these budgets together that have a lot of fluff and rainy day funds that are easily accessible,” Kelly said in the Politico article. “All of us are trying to figure out how to mitigate the damage that will be done to our constituents.”
A ‘Kansas-style comeback?’
The Times featured Kelly because she led the way in stabilizing the state government after GOP Gov. Sam Brownback’s disastrous “tax experiment” throttled school funding statewide. Now, it’s time for her and other Democratic governors to lead a “Kansas-style comeback” for the national party.
The challenge, though, is that Kansas might need another “Kansas-style comeback” if Trump’s tax cuts prove as devastating as expected.
“We have to keep the trains running,” Kelly told Cottle.
If that’s the case, though, it isn’t clear that Kelly will be the one doing the leading. She is term-limited — the 2026 session of the Kansas Legislature will be her last — and opposed by GOP supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature.
She said last year she won’t run for higher office after leaving the governorship behind.
“It is really time for me to move on and to let others come up and serve,” she told KCUR in November.
Kelly has done good work for Kansas. But the best thing she can do now to help Democrats nationally is to do whatever is needed to help her state party to keep the governorship next year. It’s the next generation of Democratic leaders who will have to lead the comeback.
This story was originally published July 15, 2025 at 5:08 AM.