Kansas GOP icon Nancy Kassebaum endorses Kamala Harris. Can it make a difference? | Opinion
This is one of those days when something happens and you don’t know exactly what it means, but you know it means something.
I woke up this morning to find that Nancy Kassebaum, one of the few living legends left in Kansas Republican politics, had endorsed the Democratic presidential ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Joining her in the endorsement statement, which was provided to Fox News Digital, were Sandy Praeger, the Kansas insurance commissioner from 2003 to 2015, and former federal appeals Judge Deanell Reece Tacha, a Kansas native appointed to the 10th Circuit Court by Ronald Reagan in 1985, who served until her retirement as chief judge in 2011.
In their joint statement to Fox, they said Americans are presented with “a stark choice.”
“No candidate is perfect, and we do not pretend that we subscribe to all the policy positions taken either by the national parties or any individual candidates,” they wrote. “However, we fervently believe that we must do our part to try to build a brighter future, which is why we will be voting for Kamala Harris and [Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz] in this election. We believe they most closely align with the aspirations of Kansans and reflect our rich history of working together ‘to the stars through difficulty.’”
Donald Trump’s campaign responded with their usual belittling disdain of anyone who disagrees with them: “Nobody knows who these people are, and nobody cares.”
Here in Kansas, most of us know at least two of the three. And our history says we do care what they think.
Deserving of respect
Kassebaum was the first woman ever to serve Kansas in the U.S. Senate, and voters here elected her to three terms. She’s the daughter of the late Alf Landon, former Kansas governor and the Republican candidate for president against Franklin Roosevelt in 1936.
Praeger was so widely popular as insurance commissioner that the Democrats didn’t even field a candidate against her the last time she ran, and she won with 99.6% of the vote.
Tacha wasn’t a household name — appellate court judges seldom are — but her long and distinguished career as a jurist and law-school dean merits respect.
Kassebaum made a highly publicized endorsement of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in her 2018 campaign against Kris Kobach, and four years later when Kelly ran against Derek Schmidt. Praeger also endorsed Kelly in 2022.
The pair were considered part of the moderate wing of the Republican Party, that was essentially purged from the Statehouse in a campaign masterminded by Sam Brownback when he was governor.
The Trump campaign’s reaction to the endorsements says something about them: They believe they can be as dismissive as they want of Kansas and Kansans because we’re going to vote for them anyway, no matter what they do or say.
And it says something about us: We have been so reliably Republican in every presidential election since Lyndon Johnson that we’ve voted ourselves into irrelevance.
The political publication The Hill rates Trump’s chance of winning Kansas at greater than 99%. Our state is considered such a nonentity in national politics that nobody even bothers to ask us what we think anymore.
We haven’t been the subject of a single poll since President Joe Biden stepped aside and turned the Democratic presidential campaign over to his vice president, Harris.
In fact, the only poll gauging Kansas sentiment in the presidential race all year appears to have been commissioned by former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which showed him beating Biden by 12 points and running only two points behind Trump. That poll, conducted by Zogby Analytics, showed Trump up five points in Kansas in a head-to-head matchup with Biden: 48.9% to 43.9%.
We can pretty much ignore those numbers. They seemed pretty squirrely when they came out in April and a lot has happened since.
Harris-Walz energy
Maybe Trump shouldn’t be quite as smug about us falling into the MAGA line as he obviously is.
We are, after all, the state that was the first to vote in favor of abortion rights after Trump appointees on the Supreme Court cast the decisive votes to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Trump himself noted that in his Sept. 10 debate with Harris: “Kansas, the vote was somewhat liberal — much more liberal than people would have thought.”
Also, there is significant and — in my experience as a Kansas political writer — unprecedented energy for the Democratic presidential campaign this year:
▪ A hastily created Facebook group — Kansas Women for Kamala Harris — has just shy of 30,000 members. Astonishingly, it’s a private group, so not just anyone can join.
▪ A Harris-Walz rally at the Wave venue in Wichita on Aug. 29 drew a sizable crowd, so county Democrats have planned another one for Thursday. A debate watch party for Democrats also drew a packed house at The Artichoke East sandwich bar.
▪ Kansas women are posting themselves on social media with pearls and blue “Chucks” (Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers). They’re staples of Harris’ campaign wardrobe and a sort of under-the-radar show of support for her among those who can’t wear campaign gear in the workplace.
Does this energy translate into a win for Harris in Kansas? I wouldn’t go that far.
But that doesn’t mean it won’t make a difference.
Across this state, especially in northeast Kansas and the Wichita area, there are close races for Kansas House, Senate and county commission seats, where down-ballot Democratic candidates might benefit from a movement of motivated women who turn out on election day on a mission to support Kamala Harris.
For now, I’ll just say don’t sleep on Kansas.
This election could turn out to be a lot more interesting than the rest of the country — and the Trump campaign — is giving us credit for.
This story was originally published September 27, 2024 at 3:33 PM.
