Kansas Lawmakers Defect to Democrats as G.O.P. Struggles in Suburbs: New York Times:

[Stuart G]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/us/kansas-republicans-turn-democrat.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage'


The moderates from the Kansas City metro area all became Democrats in the last month, reflecting a national realignment in a key partisan battleground.
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By Mitch Smith
Jan. 22, 2019


LENEXA, Kan. — State Senator Dinah Sykes, a Democrat for three whole weeks, told the retirement home residents that she had felt ignored by Republican leaders. She said that she remained a political moderate. She promised that her views on policy hadn’t changed when she quit the Republican Party, only the letter beside her name.

But just like America, and just like Kansas, the roomful of Ms. Sykes’s constituents was divided.

“You flipped — I’m disenfranchised,” said Kent Crippin, 82. “And I’ve been a Republican all my life.”

Ms. Sykes choked back tears as she responded. “If I’m not re-elected, that’s O.K., but I did what I felt was right,” she said. “I’m sorry I’ve hurt you.”

Republican Party that has controlled this state’s Capitol and dominated its politics for years. The defections won’t affect control of the Legislature — Republicans have plenty of votes to spare in Topeka — but they reveal a larger problem for the party as 2020 approaches, and one that reaches well beyond Kansas.

The departures reflect a political shift in suburban areas of Kansas, a state that surprised political experts by electing a Democrat as governor in November. That shift is part of a larger realignment in traditionally Republican suburbs across the country, where long-marginalized Democrats are now ascendant and where voters who are upset with President Trump, especially women, have punished some moderate Republican candidates.