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Kansas Republicans have spent the past two weeks trying to move on.

The landslide Aug. 2 vote preserving abortion rights in the state constitution was a stunning defeat for many anti-abortion Republicans. GOP candidates up and down the ballot quickly pivoted to the Nov. 8 general election.

Rather than continuing the fight over abortion, Republicans were hoping to shift the focus back to inflation and President Joe Biden as they seek to tie incumbent Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and Rep. Sharice Davids to the president whose popularity has sagged in recent months.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, the Republican nominee for governor, and former Cerner executive Amanda Adkins, the Republican nominee in the 3rd Congressional District, have both shown little desire to make abortion a central focus on their campaigns following the Aug. 2 amendment vote.

The recount wont dramatically move the needle on the more than 165,000 vote lead. But it will keep the issue top of mind for voters as Republicans seek to win back the governors office and the 3rd District in November.

Neither Schmidts campaign, nor Adkins campaign, responded to questions about whether the GOP candidates supported the recount effort.

Whats ironic is the very people who I think it hurts are on the side of the people continuing to keep it in the spotlight, said Stephanie Sharp, a former moderate Republican state legislator who now operates a political consulting firm.

She added that she believes the recount hurts Amanda and Derek but the right cant let it go.

Schmidt and Adkins, Sharp said, already had support from voters on the right. Now they need to convince voters in the middle, many of whom voted no. The 3rd District is one of the most competitive congressional seats in the country and key to Republicans hopes of winning the U.S. House.

In a statement, Davids pointed out the 95,000-vote lead no had in Johnson County alone.

Im grateful to the election workers and officials who are doing their jobs here, but the recount is a waste of money and time from dangerously out-of-touch politicians who are unwilling to accept defeat, and should be called out as such, Davids said.

While Davids GOP opponent Adkins remained mum on the recount, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sought to tie the Johnson County Republican to the effort. The DCCC called it an attempt by radical election deniers and conspiracy theorists working to overthrow the will of voters in KS-03.

Recounts began Tuesday morning in Johnson, Sedgwick, Shawnee, Douglas, Crawford, Harvey, Jefferson, Lyon and Thomas counties. All but Thomas had a majority of voters reject the amendment. The counties combine to account for roughly 59% of votes cast in the August primary election.

Election workers in Johnson County began sorting ballots into piles by precincts on Tuesday. Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman said at a news conference that he hopes the actual recounting of ballots begins on Wednesday. Counties have until Saturday to complete the recount.

At least 46% of the no votes in the counties would need to flip in order to change the results of the election.

The Kansas Republican Assembly is a hard-right group unaffiliated with the official Kansas Republican Party. Over the years, it has taken on a number of ultraconservative and anti-government positions, including opposition to fluoridated water among other issues.

In Sedgwick County, Republican officials are trying to distance themselves from the Value Them Both failure. David Thorne, chairman of the county party, said the party made no effort to sign up volunteers for the recount.

The partys not involved with that, at all, Thorne said. The race is over, by a large margin.

Thorne said many Sedgwick County Republicans signed up to help with the recount on their own. Sedgwick County officials confirmed, as of Tuesday afternoon, that they had an overabundance of Republican volunteers to help count ballots and a lack of interest from Democratic counters.

We do have a lot of volunteers, and some of them on their own are probably going to be involved and just become a counter, Thorne said. But, the fact is, weve moved on. Were focusing on growing the Wichita economy and setting the vision for that and winning in the general.

A distraction?

Schmidt attempted to reset the political conversation this week by attacking Kelly on education, a major emphasis in her first campaign for governor. Schmidt aimed to hit Kelly on student achievement and school shutdowns of early COVID-19.

The new front in the race came several days after Schmidt quietly posted a statement online in the wake of the amendment defeat that declared he had never supported a total abortion ban and preferred exceptions for instances of rape, incest and the life of the mother. He otherwise sidestepped the issue.

Going forward, I will continue to do what Ive done for years defend commonsense regulations supported by a majority of Kansans such as the existing restrictions on late-term abortion and on taxpayer funding for abortion, said the statement, issued six days after the vote.

In a statement following the vote Adkins proclaimed the Kansas vote as evidence of the U.S. Supreme Courts wisdom returning the issue to the states. Kansans had spoken, she said, and the federal government no longer had a role.

But the effort nonetheless may distract from the issues they want to be talking about - like the economy.

Im positive it has an impact. Now the question is, how much? Is it de minimis, is it small? Its a distraction, its a sour grapes, now how much, who knows? said Kansas Senate Vice President Rick Wilborn, a McPherson Republican.

But state Rep. William Sutton, a Gardner Republican, said he expected Republicans to stay on message despite the continuation of the abortion debate.

Weve got a job to do and were set about doing that. If theres a recount going on, thats not for me to deal with. Im just doing my job ahead, he said.

The recount will require an incredible amount of labor to complete on the tight timeline.

At the Johnson County Election Office on Tuesday afternoon, a couple dozen election workers were working on the recount process. Their numbers are expected to swell to roughly 150 over the next few days. Johnson County plans to temporarily reassign some county employees from other departments to assist in the effort.

The recount will be conducted by numerous bipartisan teams, each having one Republican and one Democrat. County employees will be assigned to teams based on their party affiliation.

We will have a combination of county employees who will be reassigned to this location that will help us conclude or conduct this process, as well as election workers were working contacting to come in and help us finish the process, Sherman said.

In Sedgwick County, a lack of Democratic Party ballot counters and logistics issues are likely to delay a recount of the abortion rights vote in Wichita until Wednesday at the earliest, a Sedgwick County official said.

For the recount, the Sedgwick County Election Office is seeking 100 Republicans and 100 Democrats to count ballots and ensure bipartisan representation. At least 100 Republicans have agreed to help with the recount but the election office has not found enough Democrats, Libertarians and unaffiliated counters yet, Sedgwick County spokesperson Nicole Gibbs said.

The states leading anti-abortion groups and lawmakers have distanced themselves from the recount, which is expected to reaffirm the landslide defeat for the amendment.

In a statement about the recount the Value Them Both Coalition the primary vote yes campaign said they were focused on looking forward not back.

In a newsletter to supporters, Kansans for Life outlined possible steps forward for combating abortion in Kansas after the amendments failure, including additional resources for crisis pregnancy centers, laws protecting abortion survivors and support for candidates who would support anti-abortion judges.

The pro-life movement has faithfully fought battles on many fronts for 50 years and nothing not even a bad election night will weaken our resolve, the newsletter said.

State Rep. Brenda Landwehr, a Wichita Republican and chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee, said anti-abortion lawmakers had discussed increasing funding to Kansas existing pregnancy maintenance initiative fund and making adoptions easier in the state.

However, Landwehr said she couldnt see what could be gained from the recount.

Some people may want to make it a distraction but it shouldnt be. That race, that election happened, its over with, she said.

Ripe for the picking

But the recount will reinforce a Democratic talking point that the August vote was just one piece of a broader contest over abortion rights.

Potentially, this shows to the broader public that these are people who are bringing forward accusations and complaints that are not grounded in reality, without substantive evidence, said state Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat.

Holscher said she wasnt surprised to see a recount effort materialize Kansas lawmakers gave a platform for election deniers to spread unfounded claims of fraud during the 2022 session.

The recount, she said, would likely affirm the results. But it underscored Democrats task heading into November.

We have this whole extremist faction thats the supermajority thats pretty much detached from their constituents and what the people want. So we have to ensure that we keep sending the message that this is not the direction Kansans want to move into, Holscher said.

Sharp agreed. Candidates on the right needed to keep the abortion issue alive to energize their base, but it would push away the middle and the left.

Continuing this conversation just alienates the rest of the people that didnt vote that way, Sharp said.

However, she said, it would be incumbent on Democrats to make that point. While Davids has leaned into the abortion issue before and after the vote, Kelly has shied away from it.

Its right there. Its ripe for the picking, Sharp said.

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Democrats were riding high this summer. The Supreme Courts decision overturning Roe v. Wade energized the partys base, and the economic woes that had been plaguing the Biden administration began to subside as gas prices dropped. The party had finally scored several legislative wins with the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act. Former President Donald Trump was under investigation by the Department of Justice for potentially violating the Espionage Act, and the generic congressional polls began to tilt in their favor. Suddenly, predictions of certain midterm disaster for the party gave way to cautious optimism.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, however, the pendulum never swings in one direction forever. Bidens soul of the nation speech, in which he declared "MAGA Republicans" to be semi-fascists who posed a threat to our democracy, didnt exactly help his partys candidates. And although gas prices have dipped below their peak, the rising costs of necessities such as groceries and housing have outpaced those reductions. Moreover, the Labor Departments report on Tuesday showing year-over-year inflation at 8.3%, higher than expected, almost certainly solidified a voter backlash against Democratic candidates who have voted for all the needless overspending that triggered it.

While its highly expected that Republicans will win back the House in November, control of the Senate remains far less certain. The GOP is optimistic, but so too are the Democrats. The night before the release of the inflation report that sent the stock market into a death plunge, for example, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was reportedly overheard in a Washington, D.C., restaurant telling colleagues Democrats have a 60% chance of holding the Senate, according to a Punchbowl News report.

All else remaining the same, Republicans need to win five of the eight Senate races rated as toss-ups by RealClearPolitics: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

RCP projects the Republicans will hold onto Senate seats in Ohio, North Carolina, and Wisconsin and will pick up seats in Nevada and Georgia.

In Ohio, Trump-backed candidate J.D. Vance leads Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan by 2.7 percentage points for the open seat held by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), who is retiring.

In North Carolina, Republican Rep. Ted Budd is ahead of his opponent, Cheri Beasley, a former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, by 1.3 points. They are vying for the open seat being vacated by the retiring Republican Sen. Richard Burr.

In Wisconsin, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is in a tough fight against progressive challenger Mandela Barnes, who is ahead by 1.7 points. However, the race has tightened. A Marquette poll released this week shows Johnson ahead by 1 point. A Marquette poll conducted last month gave Barnes a 7-point advantage.

Its worth noting that right up until the 2016 election, Johnson trailed his opponent, longtime former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) by 2.7 points, but won the race by 3.4 points. Polling isnt all its cracked up to be, it seems.

In Nevada, Republican challenger Adam Laxalt could easily unseat Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. Laxalt currently prevails by just 1 point, but he has momentum on his side.

And in Georgia, football legend and Republican Herschel Walker might just pull off an upset against Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock. Trump-endorsed Walker got hammered in the polls this summer when revelations of his illegitimate children and history of mental health problems surfaced, but he has rebounded strongly over the past month. Though the RCP average of polls is currently tied, summer polls showed him trailing Warnock by as much as 10 points. Walker has made significant gains, and strong voter support for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp might be enough to pull Walker across the finish line.

The three remaining races in the toss-up column are ranked by RCP as Democratic holds. In Arizona, Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly remains stubbornly ahead of Republican Blake Masters by 4 points, although the polls have tightened in recent weeks. In New Hampshire, Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan leads Republican challenger Gen. Don Bolduc by 4 points. And in Pennsylvania, far-left John Fetterman, the states lieutenant governor, has held onto an early lead against the Trump-backed Dr. Mehmet Oz. I wrote about this race earlier this week.

Recall the overly optimistic polls in the 2020 election. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was projected to lose her reelection bid by 6.5 points. Instead, she won by 8.6 points. Although less dramatic, the story was the same for Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Steve Daines (R-MT).

There is reason to believe that pollsters are once again overestimating Democrats' chances and underestimating those of the Republicans. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warned as much this week when he predicted Masters would win over Kelly, arguing Kelly's small lead makes him vulnerable.

Even the New York Times appeared to agree in a piece published this week, which compared recent polling results with those from 2020 and 2016 and found that Democratic Senate candidates are outrunning expectations in the same places where the polls overestimated Mr. Biden in 2020 and Mrs. Clinton in 2016. He concluded there is a consistent link between Democratic strength today and polling error two years ago. The most glaring errors in 2020 occurred in Wisconsin, where polls overestimated Bidens strength by 9 points, and in Ohio, where polls underestimated Trumps strength by 8 points.

In other words, Republicans have good reason to be optimistic about taking back the Senate. As of right now, they have a very plausible path to victory.

Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor tothe Washington Examiner andthe Western Journal. Her articles have appeared on many websites, including MSN,RedState,Newsmax, theFederalist, andRealClearPolitics. Follow her onTwitterorLinkedIn.

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Despite the spin, Republicans do have a path to win the Senate - Washington Examiner

Carolyn Thomsons letter MAGA Republicans not extremists (Sept. 8, TribLIVE) implores readers not to portray MAGA Republicans as extremists, terrorists or neo-fascists. I find this hard to do given 1,000 or so MAGA Republicans stormed the Capitol in the hope of overturning a free and fair election, but OK if they arent extremists, what are they?

Thomson says she is anti-crime, but what about the messiah of her political cult? The FBI search of Mar-A-Lago proved President Donald Trump had documents belonging to the American people (regardless of how the Trump-appointed judge has seen fit to run interference for him). Thomson later invokes the ghosts of the Holocaust to defend her position. Strange, I seem to remember a group of privileged white men , marching through Charlottesville, Va., shouting Jews will not replace us. Trump later called them good people.

How about I call MAGA supporters hypocrites then? Is that politically correct enough for you?

Kris Weinschenker

Youngstown

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Letter to the editor: If not 'extremists,' what are MAGA Republicans? - TribLIVE

As the national debate on immigration continues to heat up, a new poll shows that a slim majority of voters, 51 percent, agree with the Republican party when it comes to undocumented immigration.

The New York Times/Siena College poll that was released Friday found that a lesser 37 percent of respondents said that they agreed with Democrats when it comes to illegal immigration. Another 5 percent of respondents said that they didn't agree with either party, while 1 percent said that they agreed with both.

Republicans have repeatedly criticized the Biden administration on what they describe as its "open border" policies, though President Joe Biden said Thursday that his administration was committed to upholding a safe, orderly and humane immigration policy, Newsweek previously reported. Vice President Kamala Harris also said in an interview with NBC's Meet the Press Sunday that the border is "secure," though she added that the U.S. has a "broken immigration system" that needs fixing.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics, there have been more than 1.9 million encounters at the Southwest land border by U.S. Border Patrol and the CBP Office of Field Operations in the current fiscal year, which runs from October 1, 2021, through September 30, 2022. The current data only reflects encounters from October through July, so the actual number is likely to be higher.

The CBP wrote in its July update that it was continuing to enforce U.S. immigration law and "apply consequences to those without a legal basis to remain in the U.S."

"Current restrictions at the U.S. border have not changed; single adults and families encountered at the southwest border will continue to be expelled, where appropriate, under CDC's Title 42 Order. Those who are not expelled will be processed under the long-standing Title 8 authority and placed into removal proceedings," the update read.

Still, more than one million undocumented immigrants, many of whom are seeking asylum, have been allowed into the U.S. temporarily during Biden's time as president, The New York Times reported last week. This total is separate from any migrants who may have entered the U.S. undetected.

Another survey released this month, this time from the Pew Research Center, provided insight into where Democrat and Republican views differ when it comes to the U.S. immigration system.

The survey found that while Republicans place an importance on border security and deporting immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally, Democrats place an importance on providing those who entered the country illegally with a path to reach legal status.

Republican Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona have confirmed that they've been sending buses of migrants to cities D.C. Buses have also been sent to Chicago and New York City, according to Abbott, who announced Thursday that two buses of migrants had arrived at Harris' residence in D.C.

Nearly 50 migrants were also flown into Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, this week under a program sponsored by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from Biden and other Democrats.

"Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props," Biden said Thursday at a Washington, D.C., gala for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

"We have a process in place to manage migrants at the border," he added. "Republican officials should not interfere with that process by waging these political stunts."

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Slim Majority of Voters Agree With Republicans on Undocumented Immigration - Newsweek

In a year of fiercely fought elections in battleground states across the country, some might have questioned why Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel spent her Wednesday night in a deep-blue pocket of Connecticut that Joe Biden won by nearly 33 points just two years earlier.

Leora Levy, the party's nominee against incumbent U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, trailed in the polls by double digits and by millions of dollars in fundraising, and was in need of significant help to stay competitive. Bob Stefanowski, their candidate for governor, trailed incumbent Democrat Ned Lamont in the polls by double digits in a campaign many observers initially felt would be a replica of their contentious head-to-head matchup in 2018.

But in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly two-to-one in the Statehouse, one candidate in New Britain Wednesday nightformer state Senator George Loganmight have been the main attraction.

Logan, the party's nominee for Connecticut's 5th Congressional District this year, is one of the strongest candidates the party has ever run for the solidly blue congressional seat once held by current U.S. Senator Chris Murphy. He has a history of winning competitive races against a diverse field of liberal candidates. He is a relative moderate on policy and has come out against national Republicans' efforts to curb abortion rights. He is also a Black conservative, an anomalous breed of politician rarely seen on the federal stage. (Logan could not be reached for comment.)

Since the days of Reconstruction, just 30 Black Republicans have ever been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and just four to the Senate. Most were elected immediately after the end of the Civil War. Today, there are just three Black Republicans congressmen Byron Donalds of Florida and Burgess Owens of Utah, as well as South Carolina Senator Tim Scottout of the 66 total Black members of Congress.

Republicans hope to change that, as more Black candidates are running for state and federal office as part of the GOP. The National Republican Congressional Committee counted 81 Black candidates running as Republicans in 2022 in 72 congressional districts, more than a 50 percent increase over 2020.

Last weekend, the Congressional Leadership Funda super PAC with ties to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthydropped significant sums in support of Black Republican candidates it believes could be competitive in several traditionally Democratic districts this year.

The list includes Indiana Republican Jennifer-Ruth Greenwhose Gary-based district has been trending toward Republican presidential candidates in recent cyclesas well as the campaign of Michigan Republican John James, a proven candidate who nearly won a seat in the U.S. Senate two years ago and who is now running in a Republican-leaning House district outside of Detroit.

Other candidates, including Logan and Texas Republican Wesley Hunt, who appears to be a clear favorite in the newly redrawn 38th Congressional District, have also attracted substantial financial support from national Republicans, a show of confidence strategists say is not just circumstantial.

"We're running candidates who look like members of the communities they want to serve in Congress," Congressional Leadership Fund spokesperson Calvin Moore told Newsweek.

The change in strategy, Moore said, came after Republican failures in 2018 and the recognized need for a more diverse candidate poola lesson they apparently learned from in the following election.

"In 2020, every single seat that Republicans flipped from Democrat to Republican was won by a woman or a minority candidate," said Moore. "The biggest lesson we learned was that if you want to win, you need to recruit and support compelling candidates with unique stories that fit and look like the districts they are trying to represent."

But it also comes during a period of significant demographic change among the Black electorate. In 2020, Republican President Donald Trump won 20 percent of the vote among Black men, compared to 13 percent just four years earlier.

The Democratic Party still has a virtual monopoly on Black voters, particularly in the South, where the Republican Party notably campaigned on white voters' racial anxieties in the 1980s to win seats. However, the GOP is beginning to earn converts among more socially conservative members of the Black community, even as some argue the party continues to adopt policies and rhetoric that are actually antithetical to the rights of Black citizens.

One example is Harriet Holman, a South Carolina county commissioner who, earlier this year, made national headlines after publicly switching her affiliation from Democrat to Republican. In an interview, Holman said she noticed some of her views, namely around the economy and on abortion, were no longer compatible with the Democratic Party platform.

Other issues, including national rhetoric around defunding the police, she said, also prompted her to switch parties.

Though she said she always felt some pressure to be a Democrat throughout her life, she called the Republican Party "the future," with ideals she says no longer represent those of the days of South Carolina resident Lee Atwater leading the national party. Democrats, she said, have lost sight of "kitchen table issues" like public safety and inflation that truly matter to people. Meanwhile, the GOP, she said, has made those policies its centerpiece.

"I'm running an election in 2022, dealing with 2022 issues," she told Newsweek. "The Republican Party has accepted me. I am loved within the Republican Party. I'm not going to keep reaching back for negative stuff. I'm moving forward."

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Fundraising Gives Black Republicans Reason to Believe They'll Win Elections - Newsweek