Thread by @MattCalcara

A short Kansas election 🧵 before bed.

Sharice Davids winning by double digits, again, after Republicans tried gerrymandering #KS03 is a sign of just how bad things are getting for Republicans in the state's most populous County. And a sign that Amanda Adkins is a truly terrible candidate.

JoCo Dems also picked up 3 state House seats in the county, and lost 3 more by such small margins (<250 votes) that if they don't flip thanks to late-arriving mail ballots, are probably likely to flip in 2024.

Fun fact: JoCo has added ~25K registered Dems since Nov. 2020.

Unfortunately, the #ksleg takeaway for 2022 seems to be a continuation of the trends from 2018 & 2020: KS Dems pick up seats in JoCo, but those are canceled out by losses elsewhere that enable GOP to (barely) retain its supermajority. Seems we lost 1 seat in WyCo & Wichita.

Gov. Kelly seems likely to win re-election, thanks to state Sen. Dennis Pyle giving the KS GOP the finger.

Here is a live look at Dennis Pyle leaving the KS GOP...

The bad news statewide is that Kobach *might* squeak to victory, although his opponent Chris Mann is close enough that late-arriving mail ballots, which usually heavily favor Democrats, could potentially save him.

And if not, I, for one, will be crowdfunding a recount.

Jake LaTurner in #KS02 did really poorly, given that they gerrymandered the hell out of his district to ensure he would win. If more voters had seen the debate in which Patrick Schmidt absolutely demolished sniveling toadie LaTurner, he might've done even worse.

That stupid Sheriff amendment passed easily, which means we will have to defeat crazy AF @JOCOSHERIFF Hayden at the ballot box in 2024. Hopefully we will add another 25K Dem voters to the rolls by then, and Hayden will be set for an absolute shellacking.

The OTHER stupid constitutional amendment looks like it will just barely fail, saving us from absolute chaos in our state government. Fingers crossed that mail-in ballots ensure that the No vote squeaks by. If it does, we dodged a Ty Masterson powergrab bullet.

Special shoutout to @thatguyinhutch, who remains the only elected Democratic state legislator who doesn't live in one of the state's 5 metro areas. He swam against the tide of a Trump+15-ish district to win another close re-election. #Baller

A few more shoutouts to outstanding state legislative candidates who ran way ahead of where they should have, given the lean of their districts: @keithmdavenport, @Jaelynn4KS, @Jalon4Kansas, @Courtney4Kansas & Harry Schwarz.

I hope all of you run again, b/c you ran impressively.

And final shoutouts to those state legislative candidates who lost so damn narrowly that I gnash my teeth for you: @vlvaughn, @courtneycc58, Ace Allen, & @KimZito67.

Free advice that u prolly don't want to hear rn: next time, start your campaigns earlier & you'll win. #ksleg

Lastly, big ups to my home city, Olathe, which saw Democrats win 3 seats. Allison Hougland, Dennis Miller, & Brad Boyd campaigned hard AF & their work paid off big-time.

JoCo's GOP stronghold is now decidedly purple.

My theory on how they did it, besides being good candidates?

The Olathe coordinated campaign hired a local who has been registering voters since before he could vote himself. Now in his 20s, he also worked on Sharice's 2018 campaign & various others.

Cole: u did good, my friend. Now we just need u to run all the campaigns in 2024. 😉