If Davids won, she would become the Democrat that Democrats love to hate | Opinion
Two things can be true about Sharice Davids and her potential run for the U.S. Senate:
The first is that Democrats would be darned lucky to have the Kansas City-area congresswoman as a challenger to incumbent Roger Marshall. Nobody else in the race has Davids’ profile and track record of beating well-funded GOP candidates. She gives the party its best shot at winning, or at least making Marshall work harder for reelection.
The second is that if she actually beat Marshall — a big if, admittedly — there is a pretty good chance that Davids would become the Democrat that Democrats love to hate.
Think Kyrsten Sinema. Or Joe Manchin.
Those two Democratic senators — now ex-senators — gave the party its last majority in the Congress’ upper chamber just a few years ago. They won tough seats in red or reddish states. But their moderate-to-a-fault approaches also enraged the party’s national rank-and-file progressive base.
Immigration activists once confronted Sinema in a public bathroom. Climate activists surrounded Manchin’s yacht in kayaks. For a couple of years during the Biden administration, neither could ever escape the spotlight of lefty rage.
Not coincidentally, both ended up leaving the Democratic Party and declaring themselves independents.
Not coincidentally, both ended up leaving the Senate.
And maybe not coincidentally, Democrats are currently shut out of power in Congress.
Now, Davids sure seems poised to follow in the footsteps of Manchin and Sinema — if she decides to challenge Marshall.
Not yet backed impeaching Kristi Noem
Davids hasn’t made that decision yet, as far as we know, though she just completed a very public road trip outside her northeast Kansas district to visit voters in Topeka, Wichita, Dodge City and Colby.
Just a coincidence, surely.
Back in Washington, though, she’s one of the few Democrats to refuse to sign onto the effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of immigration agents in Minneapolis.
There are 213 Democrats in the House, and 182 are cosponsors of the impeachment resolution. Davids — again — isn’t one of them.
“Something has to change, and that means all options should be on the table,” she said in a statement to The Star’s Matthew Kelly. “I’m also realistic about the political makeup of Congress. While an impeachment vote against the Secretary likely isn’t going to pass, we should keep pursuing meaningful ways to make sure accountability actually happens.”
It’s a reasonable, math-driven stance. Impeachment doesn’t have the votes. But it also rather obviously puts Davids outside the Democratic Party mainstream.
That’s not a one-off. Davids has also cast votes — for Homeland Security funding and in support of Israel — that have drawn the ire of progressive activists.
“I am beyond disappointed that she has refused to use her leverage in this situation,” Moti Rieber, executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, told The Johnson County Post last week following Davids’ homeland funding vote.
Laura Kelly-like path to victory?
So Davids won’t be popular with progressives. That might give her a better shot at unseating Marshall.
A Bernie Sanders acolyte won’t play well out in the conservative western Kansas hinterlands, let’s be honest. Davids can’t win a Senate seat by making lefty Democrats happy with her.
Of course, no Democrat — of any ideological bent — is going to win in western Kansas.
Davids’ path to a statewide Senate victory probably looks a lot like the one that carried Gov. Laura Kelly to two terms as Kansas governor: Run up the score in Johnson County, Lawrence and other blue-leaning urban environs while keeping the vote just close enough in rural areas of the Sunflower State to win the overall campaign.
Kelly accomplished that feat by emphasizing her moderate “middle of the road” bona fides.
Davids would probably have to do the same.
“I didn’t come to Congress to play political games,” she posted Monday on X. “I came to solve problems people feel in their daily lives.”
It’s harder to win a statewide campaign, though, if your own party doesn’t much love you.
Which means progressive Democrats — in Kansas and nationally — have a choice: Do they want progressive ideological purity or do they want a chance at winning? Do they want a Democratic senator who will vote with them 90% of the time, or a Republican who never will?
Seems like those questions ought to have easy answers.
The examples of Manchin and Sinema suggest otherwise. Davids will have to decide — soon — if she’s willing to risk their fate.
This story was originally published February 10, 2026 at 5:07 AM.
