Kansas Democrats are used to losing.
No Democrat has carried the state in a presidential election since the 1960s. Nearly a century has passed since a Kansas Democrat won a U.S. Senate election. And not only are far more Republican voters registered in Kansas than Democrats, Democrats are also outnumbered by voters with no party affiliation at all.
Still, something unusual happens when Kansans elect a governor: They often pick a Democrat.
With a two-term incumbent, Gov. Laura Kelly, barred by term limits from running again, Democratic primary voters are searching for her successor. Those voters know that it takes a particular kind of Democrat to win in Kansas, and that Republicans see the state as one of their best opportunities to flip a governorship.
Like in other places where Democrats are defending open seats, the three-way race for the Kansas nomination has been defined by questions of electability, party values and how to navigate the Trump era. But unlike other primaries across the country that have pitted more moderate Democrats against democratic socialists, including for U.S. House in New York and governor in Wisconsin, the debate in Kansas has played out across a much narrower ideological spectrum.
In interviews across Kansas, Democratic voters said they were looking for a candidate who has broad enough appeal to win centrist and even conservative voters in November. But as they rattled off their fears about President Trump’s governance, some of those voters said they worried, too, about a blurry line between bipartisanship and capitulation.
“Here in Kansas, we all recognize that we have to nominate a moderate Democrat,” said Kelm Lear, who leads the Riley County Democratic Party and has not endorsed a candidate. “But we want to make sure that a moderate Democrat isn’t someone who will bend the knee on our core values.”
No matter who wins the primary on Tuesday, a difficult general election fight awaits.
On the Republican side, Mr. Trump has endorsed Ty Masterson, the president of the State Senate, who helped engineer overrides of dozens of Ms. Kelly’s vetoes on bills ranging from transgender issues to election policy. Billboards showing Mr. Trump and Mr. Masterson side by side are plastered along Interstate 35, and Mr. Masterson is seen as a front-runner in a competitive primary.
On paper, the Democratic candidates for governor seem a lot alike.
The two who have led in polling, Cindy Holscher and Ethan Corson, are both state senators from the same county in suburban Kansas City who largely hew to the party line on social issues. Both have been described as moderates. And both won in legislative districts that Republicans had previously carried. The third candidate, Mayor Curt Skoog of Overland Park, is also a suburbanite with moderate politics.
Despite their similarities, the candidates have run sharply contrasting campaigns that have won over very different types of Democratic voters, echoing in some ways a broader national fight over the party’s direction.
Mr. Corson is seeking to replicate the middle-of-the-road playbook that Governor Kelly used to win in Kansas, in no small part by telling everyone he can that Ms. Kelly has endorsed him. He has defended Ms. Kelly’s efforts with Republicans to create incentives to draw large businesses to Kansas. And though he has pledged to stand up to the president when needed, Mr. Corson has also extolled the virtues of working across the political aisle.
Ms. Holscher has won over many in the progressive base by embracing economic populism and presenting herself as a rival of “the establishment.” She has called for a moratorium on data centers and criticized a Kelly-backed deal that provided incentives for the Kansas City Chiefs to move across the state line from Missouri. In an interview, she described some legislative Republicans in Kansas as “fascist.”
Even as Mr. Corson has racked up campaign donations and prominent endorsements, Ms. Holscher has led by large margins in the limited public polling of the race.
“She has been fighting,” said Christopher Renner, an educator who had already voted for Ms. Holscher, after listening to her address a few-dozen voters at a restaurant in Junction City.
Other voters saw Mr. Corson as a better, and perhaps safer, choice to maintain a lever of Democratic power. Being a Democratic governor in Kansas can be a complicated dance, particularly as Republicans hold supermajorities in the State Legislature.
Robert Abbott, a regular at Mr. Corson’s monthly town hall meetings, described Mr. Corson as “fair across the board” and a good listener — someone he believed would stand up to Republicans.
“I think Kelly has been a counterbalance,” said Mr. Abbott, a retired music teacher from suburban Kansas City. “I am confident that Ethan Corson would be, as well.”
The most recent public poll was conducted in mid-June, before a blitz of advertising that inserted Ms. Kelly into the primary.
Ms. Kelly, who remains popular among Democrats, filmed a commercial for Mr. Corson, describing him as someone who will “stand up to Trump and ICE” and who has the necessary “strength, judgment and backbone.” The governor has also expressed concerns about nominating Ms. Holscher, whom Ms. Kelly said “has positioned herself so far to the left at this point that it will be very hard for her to come back.”
“There’s no way you win just by exciting the Democrat base,” Ms. Kelly said in an interview. Her message to primary voters: “You need to elect a candidate who shares a lot of your values but doesn’t completely turn off the independents and the Republicans.”
The personal nature of the rift between Ms. Kelly and Ms. Holscher became more clear in recent days when The Kansas City Star published a long text message sent last year from Ms. Holscher to Ms. Kelly’s chief of staff, urging the governor’s team not to get involved in the primary. Ms. Kelly’s team interpreted the text as a threat to publicize the governor’s divorce, though Ms. Holscher has said it was not.
As Election Day approached, Kirk Allen, a retired security officer in Wichita, said he was still deciding between candidates after hearing Mr. Corson speak at a church. But he was not impressed by Mr. Corson’s repeated calls for bipartisanship.
“I need somebody who’s going to go out there and help the poor,” Mr. Allen said, adding, “It’s time for the Democrats to show their power.”
The sharpest contrast between the candidates is on economic issues, particularly the use of tax incentives. Ms. Holscher and Mr. Corson both voted to offer tax breaks for data center construction and to explore a deal with the Chiefs. Mr. Corson has stood by those ideas, while Ms. Holscher has pivoted.
As opposition to data centers became a top-tier political issue, Ms. Holscher called for a pause on construction. She also came out against the deal to move the Chiefs to Kansas and voted against creating a stadium authority to oversee the development.
“We have to make sure the focus is on what can we do to make life better for regular people,” said Ms. Holscher, 57, a former telecommunications executive who speaks often about growing up on a Missouri farm. She said an “emphasis on tax breaks for wealthy folks, corporations and billionaires” was continuing “to leave our people behind.”
Mr. Corson, 44, a lawyer who worked in the U.S. Department of Commerce, has defended the Kelly administration’s approach to attracting business investments. He has called for “meaningful guardrails” on data centers, but said local officials should ultimately decide whether those facilities are built.
“You cannot win a general election in Kansas if you are not focused on jobs,” Mr. Corson said. “You need to be focused on jobs and economic growth.”
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