In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly Tests if Any Politics Is Still Local

FORT SCOTT, Kan. — Two months ago, Kansas became the unlikely toast of the Democratic Party after voters here overwhelmingly affirmed their support for protecting abortion rights in the State Constitution, a result that electrified national Democrats and revived their hopes of surviving the midterm elections across the country.

Locked in her own re-election battle, the state’s Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, was not focused on electrifying anyone as she arrived in this small city in a deeply Republican corner of Kansas to dispense local highway grants — part of a bipartisan initiative, she noted about 30 seconds into her remarks.

Ms. Kelly’s relentless talk about working with Republicans, her understated, no-nonsense style and her emphasis on education funding and economic development help explain why she enjoys strong approval ratings in a state that former President Donald J. Trump won by nearly 15 percentage points, and why, as the only Democratic governor seeking re-election in a state Mr. Trump won in 2020, she has narrowly led in some limited recent polling.

Traditionally, candidates for governor — from Kansas to Massachusetts — have separated from their parties more successfully than contenders for federal office have, even as the nation’s politics have grown ever more tribal. Now, amid signs of a worsening environment for Democrats, the final stretch of the Kansas campaign is testing how much protection a strong local, personal brand still affords in governor’s races against gale-force political headwinds.

“People can and often do distinguish governor’s races and look at them differently,” said Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, who also acknowledged the difficulties of the “tough environment.” “They want people who are competent and pragmatic.”

That is Ms. Kelly’s argument, both on defense and on offense: As she runs against Derek Schmidt, the attorney general of Kansas, she is linking him not to far-right national Republicans but to former Gov. Sam Brownback, whose tax-cutting experiment led to spending cuts in education and other programs that ignited a bipartisan revolt several years ago. In turn, Mr. Schmidt is seeking to tie Ms. Kelly closely to President Biden.

Ms. Kelly, who built an early fund-raising edge, has gone to significant lengths to distance herself from her party. She filmed a campaign ad from the middle of a road, saying, “Like most Kansans, I’m not too far right or too far left.”

In an interview last week, she declined to say whether she wanted Mr. Biden to be the 2024 Democratic nominee. And she did not directly answer whether Americans were better off with Mr. Trump out of the White House, sidestepping to discuss her tenure instead.

“I’ll deal with the national issues when I need to and when Kansas needs something,” Ms. Kelly said. “But otherwise I stay focused like a laser” on the state.

She suggested she had worked productively with Mr. Trump on pandemic management, and noted her disagreement with Mr. Biden over coronavirus vaccine mandates, as well as her support for the infrastructure spending package passed by Congress with bipartisan backing.

She has also plainly benefited from the power of incumbency, allowing her to focus on less ideological economic matters. A month before Election Day, she joined representatives from Pratt Industries for an opening of a corrugated-box plant near Wichita, and earlier this year she announced a large deal for a Panasonic factory in De Soto, which has faced scrutiny but seems to have resonated with some voters, judging from interviews.

Ms. Kelly has been endorsed by several moderates who served as Republican officials in Kansas, including former Gov. Bill Graves, former Senator Nancy L. Kassebaum and Carla Stovall, a former state attorney general. (Mr. Schmidt had stints working with all of them.)

That was significant to Matthew Wells, a Republican city commissioner in Fort Scott who said he was inclined to back Ms. Kelly, though he said he doubted she was connecting with many others in his conservative community.

“The use of divisive political rhetoric that has driven a wedge between the two parties — I believe, especially in our area, it has become much worse,” he said, predicting that many voters would stick with a straight Republican ticket.

But in more than a dozen interviews just over an hour north, in suburban Kansas City, voters indicated significant willingness to cross party lines.

“She’s a good fighter for our state,” said Nancy Kenyon, 60, of Overland Park, Kan., who said she typically voted Republican but was considering backing Ms. Kelly.

Ms. Kenyon was shopping at an upscale complex in politically crucial Johnson County. Like many other bedroom communities home to educated professionals, Johnson County was once a moderate Republican bastion but swung toward Democrats during the Trump era. Representative Sharice Davids, a Democrat, serves the area in the House.

Ms. Kelly will need strong margins there to offset more conservative parts of the state. Mr. Schmidt does not need to win Johnson County, but he cannot afford to lose in a blowout.

Private Republican polling conducted this month found Mr. Schmidt trailing Ms. Kelly by double digits in the Kansas City suburbs and surrounding areas. Roughly 70 percent of voters in Johnson County also opposed the anti-abortion rights ballot question this summer, which Mr. Schmidt supported. In an interview, Mr. Schmidt said the result of the August referendum “has to be respected” and vowed to focus on defending abortion restrictions that are already in place.

Ms. Kelly is not making abortion rights a focal point of her campaign, in contrast to many other Democrats, but she is not running from the issue, either.

“There will be a bill in the Kansas Legislature, no doubt, to impose greater restrictions,” she said in the interview. “If I’m in office, it can be vetoed. If my opponent is in office, it’ll become law.”

Like other states, Kansas had a surge in women registering to vote after Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the abortion rights vote in August drew extraordinary turnout.

Stephanie Sharp, a Republican former state representative who is now a political strategist in Johnson County backing Ms. Kelly, worried aloud about whether that energy was translating into enthusiasm about November.

“I just think those Aug. 2 voters aren’t continuing to be as engaged,” said Ms. Sharp, who said she saw Ms. Kelly at a fund-raiser with Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota in suburban Kansas City last week.

Ms. Sharp said she wished she “could just take all of those Democrats and unaffiliated voters from August by the lapels, and just shake them and say, ‘Do you realize the power you have?’”

Mr. Schmidt was recently outside a local Republican office in Wichita, in Sedgwick County, which Ms. Kelly won in 2018, rallying with Republicans who had no doubts about their voters’ enthusiasm.

“I’ve never seen Kansans so angry,” said Senator Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican.

While a state senator, Dennis Pyle, is challenging Mr. Schmidt from the right with an independent bid, Mr. Schmidt is no centrist. He signed on to a baseless effort to challenge the 2020 election results and has embraced cultural battles over education and barring transgender athletes from participating in women’s and girls’ sports.

Stylistically, though, Mr. Schmidt is more low-key than lightning rod. He sounds traditional Republican notes about valuing “personal liberty, freedom and fiscal responsibility” over an “overreaching, big-government mentality,” and has emphasized public safety and the economy.

Mr. Schmidt, who received Mr. Trump’s endorsement but dodged when asked whether he wanted Mr. Trump to be the 2024 Republican nominee, has secured the backing of some groups that either supported Ms. Kelly or stayed neutral last time, as well as her first budget director, who previously served as a Republican state lawmaker.

The Republican Governors Association has continued to invest in the race; former Vice President Mike Pence is slated to campaign for Mr. Schmidt on Friday; and Robin Dole, the daughter of Bob Dole, the former Senate majority leader from Kansas, recently wrote an op-ed article in support of Mr. Schmidt, noting he received her father’s final political endorsement.

Still, Mr. Schmidt’s candidacy has given some national Republicans heartburn. Ms. Kelly and Democratic allies started advertising on television in April; he waited until nearly September. In late summer, national Republican strategists made clear to Mr. Schmidt and his campaign that they wanted to see sharper lines of attack against Ms. Kelly, and a more affirmative case for his candidacy, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversations.

“We have run a very strong campaign, and I am very pleased to have a wide range of support,” Mr. Schmidt said when asked about some of that angst.

On air, Mr. Schmidt has been pummeled as an acolyte of Mr. Brownback. And at Mr. Schmidt’s stop in Wichita, the final event on a statewide bus tour, it was easy to see why. Melinda Pore, 66, a Trump voter who backed Ms. Kelly in 2018, arrived at the gathering saying she was undecided, but she was clearly bothered by memories of the former governor.

“If you know anything about Brownback, there’s a lot not to like,” she said.

Mr. Schmidt has scoffed at the comparisons, saying Ms. Kelly has “spent a lot of time and money talking about somebody who’s not on the ballot.”

Asked to name the biggest difference between himself and Mr. Brownback, Mr. Schmidt did not exert himself: “I’m a candidate this year who’s focused on where we’re headed,” he said. In other venues, he has distanced himself in more detail.

Then again, Mr. Schmidt, too, is highlighting someone who is not on this year’s ballot.

“We have a Biden Democrat in this governor’s office,” Mr. Schmidt told his audience in Wichita. “This election is about correcting that problem.”

For Ms. Pore, that may be reason enough to give him her vote.

“There are so many things that I don’t like that President Biden’s doing,” she said after Mr. Schmidt spoke. “I think I’m just going to vote straight ticket. And I usually don’t do that.”