Estes wins in Cowley County by 13 points

Ron Estes, the Republican state treasurer, remains the favorite to win. In this March 23, 2017, photo, Democrat James Thompson, a candidate for Kansas’ 4th Congressional District, speaks during a debate in Wichita, Kan. Trump won that county by 18 points. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and spent almost $120,000 in the final days of the campaign, signaling how scared they were in a race that should have never even been close.

Edwards County: Estes, 479 (78 percent); Thompson, 129 (21 percent); Rockhold 8 (1 percent).

The special election in a House district in the Midwestern state of Kansas was to replace Mike Pompeo, who became Trump’s Central Intelligence Agency director.

Estes supported Trump past year and backs the president’s policies. If Democrats can seriously compete in this Kansas district, they can seriously compete nearly anywhere. “You play every game”. So were national Republicans, who were anxious enough that the party gave Kansas more attention in the last week or two than it does in some presidential elections.

In the 4th District, Estes had 53 percent of the vote and Thompson had 45 percent.

President Trump is historically unpopular, and the question on everyone’s minds this month is how much of that unfavorability could overflow into the 2018 elections.

A loss – in one of the 100 most Republican-leaning districts in the country, according to the Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index scores, which measure presidential-election performance against the national average – would have been devastating for the GOP and particularly for Trump, who already in his young presidency has had trouble wrangling lawmakers to vote for administration priorities like the repeal of Obamacare.

Republican Ron Estes beat back a surprisingly strong challenge from an unheralded and underfunded Democratic challenger to claim a special election victory in Kansas’ 4th district on Tuesday night. After all, if a Democrat could win a district that Trump won big, why couldn’t a Democrat win a district Republicans only carried by single digits? Specifically, this election was a window into how voters in this deep-red congressional district feel about Trump and Republicans’ leadership right now.

The outcome was a shot across the bow of national Republicans as the party faces three more special elections in Georgia, Montana and SC.

The Daily Kos is encouraging readers to contribute to and make phone calls for Democrat and Wichita civil rights attorney James Thompson.

Thompson won the Kansas Democratic Party’s nomination in February by defeating a well-known politician, former State Treasurer Dennis McKinney. Estes raised $312,000 to Thompson’s $254,000 as of late March. Next week’s special election could swing the conservative district to Democrats for the first time in decades.

– Only one Democratic-held district gave Trump more of its vote – (Minnesota Rep. Collin C. Peterson’s district, which gave Trump 62 percent).

The map following the November election showed that far more people, 2,864,974 more to be exact, voted for Hillary Clinton than Trump.

“I wasn’t even going to vote”, she said as she left her polling site Tuesday morning.

All those GOP calls prompted Charlene Health, a 52-year-old homemaker and Republican in Belle Plaine, to cast a ballot for Estes. “A wonderful guy, I need his help on Healthcare & Tax Cuts (Reform)”. Even President Donald Trump tweeted his support and sent a robocall urging Republican to get out the vote.

Trump’s unpopularity was not the only thing hurting Estes.

“The Associated Press says Republican Ron Estes has won the special House election to replace Mike Pompeo”. Pompeo cruised to re-election in November with 61 percent of the vote. Vice President Mike Pence did likewise. Ted Cruz of Texas campaigned for him.