After Gov. Kelly leaves office, is Kansas headed toward a MAGA future? | Opinion
What is Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s greatest political accomplishment?
Is it working to restore school funding and state finances after Sam Brownback’s “tax experiment” failed spectacularly? Shepherding the state through COVID-19? Maybe bringing the Kansas City Chiefs across the state line?
None of the above.
Kelly’s greatest accomplishment is keeping the MAGA-fication of Kansas politics at bay.
Really.
But 2026 is upon us. Kelly is serving out her final year in office before term limits force her to give way.
Which means her achievement — fending off the specter of Trumpism in a red state for nearly a decade — is also in grave danger.
Voters will decide next November whether to stick with a status quo of sorts — a Democratic governor who keeps a modest check on overwhelming GOP majorities in the Legislature — or whether they are ready to hand full control of state government to a state Republican Party that has adopted the style and priorities of the guy currently in the White House.
Put another way: 2026 could be the year that Kansas finally goes MAGA.
Kansans chose ‘middle of the road’
It all could have gone differently.
Back in 2018, President Donald Trump had been in the White House for nearly two years. The GOP nominee for Kansas governor that year was probably the Trumpiest candidate the state had to offer: Kris Kobach, an anti-immigrant firebrand with a national profile who campaigned on a jeep with a so-called “replica” machine gun mounted in the back.
Kansas voters instead chose Kelly — a state senator who, uh, didn’t campaign with firearms prominently displayed.
The national media was shocked. Kansas? Elected a Democrat? Nobody should have been surprised. Despite the Sunflower State’s reputation for conservatism, we’ve long inclined toward moderate leaders — temperamentally and ideologically — in these parts: John Carlin, Bill Graves, Kathleen Sebelius, Nancy Kassebaum.
That was Kansas’ first repudiation of state-level MAGA politics. The second came four years later when Kelly won reelection by beating former Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who campaigned on the kind of incessant right-wing scaremongering about drag queens and transgender kids that Trump would feature so prominently — and a bit more successfully — in his 2024 campaign.
Kelly, meanwhile, kept talking and talking about the “middle of the road.” She won.
Yes, Kansas has voted for Trump in the last three presidential elections. When it comes to the governor’s mansion, though, voters have sent a consistent message: Do your job, keep the schools running and don’t waste our time with culture war nonsense.
That’s the opposite of the MAGA ethos, which tends — like the man who created it — to be loud, bullying and not always super-concerned with governing competently.
Still a Republican state
Here’s the case for a Kansas MAGA breakthrough in 2026: Kansas is still a Republican state.
Republicans primary voters will be mostly Trumpist. Whomever those voters choose as the party’s gubernatorial nominee — Senate President Ty Masterson, former Gov. Jeff Colyer, Secretary of State Scott Schwab or Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt are the biggest names in a crowded GOP field — will start out with a massive advantage against the Democratic nominee because Kansas Republicans always start out with a massive advantage.
The case against? Kansans tend not to have a lot of patience with right-wing ideologues.
Brownback fled Cedar Crest, the governor’s mansion, once it was apparent the state’s voters had rejected his vision. Antiabortion-rights zealot Phill Kline got the boot after four years as attorney general. Kobach is still around, serving as the current attorney general, but he has lost a few elections over the years.
That’s a lot of history.
Things can change, though. A lot depends on Democrats finding the right successor to Kelly. (State Sens. Ethan Corson and Cindy Holscher are the main contenders for the party’s nomination.) And a lot depends on whether the electorate sticks to its old, more-moderate-than-you’d-expect voting patterns, or if the country’s broader radicalization has finally taken root here.
2026 might be the year Kansas goes MAGA. It will be Kansans who decide.
