Elections are the ultimate vibe check for political parties.
And the mood in Democratic watch parties quickly congealed into sludge Tuesday night.
Headed into the night, the tossup election seemed within the grasp of Vice President Kamala Harris. By the end of the evening, the Democratic body language was slumped shoulders, surprised faces and early exits.
They failed to defeat Donald Trump, a man they love to hate. They couldn’t unseat Kansas legislators who appear too conservative for their districts.
Sorry, Democrats, because here comes more cold water on your shivering and drenched heads: any seemingly positive election returns for Harris in Kansas might actually be bad news masquerading.
County election returns in Kansas provide an interesting lens, even if the state reliably wants a Republican in the White House.
Only four counties from 105 in Kansas gave Harris a majority of their votes. Riley County, home to Kansas State University, provided Harris with a razor-thin victory: 291 votes more than Trump. Aside from that small gain, Harris won the counties of Johnson, Wyandotte and Douglas, home of the state’s largest university, the University of Kansas.
However, all four majority-Harris counties voted at a higher rate for Trump than they had in 2020. Most dramatically, Wyandotte County shifted 7.9 percentage points toward Trump between 2020 and 2024. This was the third-largest swing toward Trump in the state among all counties — even counties that Trump won.
While losing Douglas County, Trump attracted 3.3 points more voters there than he did in 2020, and 2.2 points more in Riley County. The most liberal parts of Kansas swung — and decidedly so — away from Democrats.
If you thought that data set was the cold water, those are just the first drops hitting your head.
National political pundits talked about the Blue Wall in the run-up to the election. Democrats hoped that this imagined wall would include states in the northern Midwest, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan.
Tuesday’s vote, when compared to the 2020 results, provides a different wall. The New York Times interactive election returns map shows it. (Click on Kansas and then select “Shift from 2020.”) You will see a red wall stretching from Minnesota to Louisiana. Each of the hundreds of red arrows signifies a county swung from a 2020 Biden win to a 2024 Trump win. The few and lonely blue arrows show the few counties that Harris stole back from Trump this election.
The red wall showing Trump’s 2024 gains is a thick, straight line from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. In some locations, you might be hundreds of miles from any county that swung toward Harris.
Kansas interrupts Trump’s red wall. Of the 105 counties in the state, 20 of them edged toward Harris, rather than Trump.
Those Kansas counties: Barber, Chase, Chautauqua, Comanche, Ellsworth, Greeley, Harper, Kingman, Lane, Logan, Morris, Morton, Ness, Osborne, Phillips, Rooks, Russell, Sumner, Thomas and Wallace.
Compare this long list to Missouri (only five Harris swing counties), Iowa (one), Minnesota (three), Illinois (five) and Arkansas (one). Here in Kansas, almost one in five counties swung toward Harris.
(I am warning you: Beware of considering this as good news, Kansas Democrats. Still more cold water in this bucket.)
The margins in these Kansas swing counties were tiny. Harris shifted small parts of these 20 county electorates, ranging from less than .1 points to 3.3 points. They are less swings, and more like nudges.
Or, perhaps they are even less than nudges.
Inspect the list of counties that moved toward Harris. The counties had an average population of about 5,000. The counties lost aggregate population during the last statewide certification. Wallace County, home to the biggest Harris nudge, is the 104th smallest county. These are not the most lucrative places to make electoral gains.
All of this suggests that the blue arrows are flukes caused by rural counties, rather than successes for Democrats. Comanche County only had 839 votes cast, so results in counties are more likely displaying noise than providing significant results.
Harris might have stolen back a few percentage points in these sparsely populated Kansas counties. Meanwhile, Trump wrangled essentially the same number — if not more — from Wyandotte County alone.
The optimism that last-minute polls created for Democrats in Iowa and Kansas turned out to be mirages. The Kansas Speaks poll showed Trump as vulnerable in Kansas (only leading by 5 points in the week heading up to the election). That poll was more than 10 points off from the final result, when compared with Trump’s 16-point win in Kansas.
A trusted Des Moines Register-Guard poll similarly suggested that other Midwesterners were reconsidering Trump as late as election week, putting Harris three percentage points ahead. Trump secured Iowa by 13 points.
All of this means that the Midwest remains free of electoral drama, unless you consider a growing affinity for Trump as drama.
On election night, cable news journalists might theatrically zoom in to click on Kansas counties early in the returns. Staring at Johnson County with 8% of returns, they tempt suspense. “Is this the night for a Kansas surprise? Anything can happen,” they say with a shrug. Kansas might get its few moments on the Magic Wall or at the fingertips of Steve Kornacki. But the spotlight wanders away soon enough.
Regardless of how fast the national broadcasters move on to other states, these county-by-county Kansas results have significance. On the Republican side, Trump might be reassured by the red wall of voters switching over to him, emboldened by the support of Kansans to reshape the federal government and seek retribution.
For Democrats, the question is: Was Tuesday more than a vibe check? Or will the same playbook lead to the same Kansas results every four years?
Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
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