2024 Kansas Primary Forecast Update

The 2024 Kansas primary election was rather uneventful due to a lack of statewide elections and competitive primaries. That isn’t to say, however, that it did not have ramifications for the general election; more specifically, the Democratic effort to break the supermajority and give Laura Kelly her two final years in office a peaceful tone. 

Factoring in finance data, a changing national environment with Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden on the top of the Democratic ticket, and primary votes, the needle did not shift much for either the Kansas Senate or House.

Senate

The Senate arguably did not shift with any statistical significance. The odds of a Republican supermajority went from ~82.5 to 80.5 percent after all data was factored. Democratic seat projections did not significantly change, going from ~11.65 to 11.75 seats. Rounding up to 12, this is where Democrats are in the 2023-2024 session, two seats shy of the seats needed to break the supermajority. 

There were three ratings changes after the new factors were considered:

SD-20: Tilt R to Lean R. This was due to massive fundraising advantage and a new incumbency bonus after Sen. Brenda Dietrich (R) defeated her primary challenger. She has a 72 percent chance of winning according to the forecast. 

SD-23: Tilt R to Tossup. Stacy Knoell (D) raked in plenty of money and has a 2:1 cash on hand advantage against Adam Thomas (R) heading into the general election. There is no incumbency bonus and the national environment has shifted to the benefit of the Democrats. Thomas still has a 57 percent chance of winning, so I believe it is his race to lose. 

SD-35: Tilt R to Tossup. A similar story to SD-23, Jason Anderson (D) has a 2:1 cash on hand advantage, the race has no incumbent, and the national environment favors Anderson. Republican TJ Rose is still ahead with a 58 percent chance of winning. 

SD-5 did not have a ratings change, but with Jeff Klemp winning the GOP primary over Echo Van Meteren, I think this boosts Republican odds of flipping this Leavenworth seat held by Jeff Pittman (D). Pittman has a massive 10:1 cash on hand advantage and has proven himself to be a very strong candidate. However, this is a Trump+7.5 district, and House districts that voted for Trump in similar margins are Lean-Likely R districts. Klemp’s primary victory increased GOP victory odds from 52 to 57 percent. 

House

The Kansas House did have a few shifts, but most of them are fairly miniscule. Democrats tended to do better in fundraising, with contested Democrats outraising their GOP counterparts $772k to $607k. Their cash on hand advantage is slightly less proportionally, $1.44 million to the GOP’s combined $1.2 million. This sets most Democrats up nicely heading into the general election campaign, and is reflected in slight boosts across the board in the forecast. However, several key primary results shifted a few races sharply to the right, resulting in an overall worse political situation for Democrats.

The odds of a Republican supermajority went from ~50 to 54 percent after all data was factored. Democratic seat projections did not significantly change, going from ~41.44 to 41.36 seats. Rounding down to 41, this is a one seat improvement from where Democrats are in the 2023-2024 session, and one seat shy of breaking the supermajority. 

Races that shifted largely due to fundraising advantages:

HD-39: Tilt R to Tossup. 64 to 59 percent chance of a GOP victory.

HD-49: Tossup to Lean D. 59 to 71 percent chance of a Dem victory.

HD-67: Tilt D to Lean D. 68 to 70 percent chance of a Dem victory.

HD-95: Lean D to Likely D. 79 to 80 percent chance of a Dem victory.

HD-12: Lean R to Likely R. 78 to 81 percent chance of a GOP victory.

As you can see, most ratings changes came from slight odds increases and decreases that just barely pushed the race past the threshold of selecting a new rating. This is my least favorite part about forecasting and predicting as ratings changes suggest a far greater difference in odds than what is actually represented in the data. 

However, a few key races moved because of their primaries, some significantly:

HD-33: Tilt R to Tossup. This seat barely shifted into Tossup territory with incumbent Mike Thompson (R) entering with a 59.75 percent chance of winning reelection. The shift occurs due to the Democrats nominating Eli Woody, who should be a more serious primary challenger. Woody, however, raised a mere $9k compared to Thompson’s $22.7k. This massive gap widens in the cash on hand advantage with Thompson entering with $36.4k compared to Woody’s $4k. Thompson’s fundraising ability prevented a larger shift towards Democrats- as had the Democrats not nominated Woody (he only won his primary 58-42), Thompson would have likely gained in margin. 

HD-60: Lean R to Likely R. Moderate Republican Mark Schreiber fended off his conservative challenger with a convincing 64-36 percent victory. Despite this being a Biden+0.5 and Kelly+20.6 district, Schreiber finds himself with great crossover appeal in this Emporia based seat. Democratic challenger Mic McGuire appears to not be running a serious campaign against Rep. Schreiber, and consistently runs to prevent an unopposed conservative Republican. Schreiber has himself a cool 81 percent chance of winning.

HD-88: Tilt D to Tossup. A fundamentally good district for Democrats, the Democratic primary created a lot of uncertainty in this election. Political newcomer Veronica Gillette shockingly won her primary by over 10 points over former Representative Chuck Schmidt. While we did not give Chuck Schmidt a particularly high candidate quality and impact score due to his short tenure and lack of electoral success, he had a huge warchest, over $25k raised and $34k cash on hand that District 88 Democrats no longer have easy access to. Incumbent Sandy Pickert (R) has less than $10k on hand, and that 3:1 financial advantage would have been big for Democrats. Should the general financial reports show Gillette substantially increasing her fundraising time, this would pair well with her clearly functional ground game, and could bode well come November. As it stands, the GOP improved their odds of retaining this key battleground seat from 32 to 52 percent. 

HD-102: Tossup to Tilt R. Jason Probst (D) is the sole Democratic legislature west of Wichita. As such, this Hutchinson-based seat is one of, if not the, most targeted districts for the Republican Party. The Republican primary was a microcosm of this general election battle. Tyson Thrall (endorsed by Sen. Mark Steffen and his populist wing of the Reno County GOP) faced Kyler Sweely (endorsed by the establishment wing of the GOP as well as pro-business PACs) for the right to challenge Probst. This was a hotly contested election that divided Republican voters, but the more traditional conservative Kyler Sweely easily won the primary. The issue? Both Democrats and Republicans believe Sweely does not actually live in the district. Steffen’s Republicans objected to Sweely’s candidacy on the grounds that he does not live in the district, but the objection was rejected. Sweely admitted that he “moved” to the district less than two weeks before the filing deadline, and that he was not actively living in the property he purchased in Hutchinson, but will do so after finishing renovations. The scandal penalty is not strongly factoring this in at the moment, but will increase as Probst makes carpetbagging a focal point of his campaign. And to be fair, his residency concerns were known well in advance of the election, and he still won the primary. Probst also has a 100:1 cash on hand advantage with $66k in the bank, but Republicans will surely flood money into this race as PACs shelled out tens of thousands to elect Sweely. Sweely’s election raises GOP odds of flipping this seat from 55 to 61 percent. 

While overall odds in the House may not have shifted very much, Democrats are in serious danger of losing at least one House seat (HD-102) and are now at risk of not picking up another (HD-88). What is saving them in the supermajority forecast are the many other seats whose odds just slightly shifted in favor of Democrats, reducing their risk of losing a fairly uncompetitive seat in an election night surprise. 

Both parties can claim victories coming out of the primary campaign. The GOP sent the “right” candidates through in races where it mattered, and Democrats put more money in the accounts of nearly every competitive Democrat than Republicans did. The forecast does not think either party gained substantial ground giving them any more of an advantage than they already had covering the last three months of the campaign. 

From now on, the forecast will remain largely the same until we get finance data at the end of October, and even then, finance data accounts for a tiny portion of the forecast. There will be some updates as the national environment continues to evolve, scandals pop up, outside spending begins, and campaign infrastructure is built. While this forecast intends to predict the election if it happened today, you could also view this as my educated guess as to what will happen in November.