Iowa Democrats got a tough break recently when their best prospect announced she would not run for governor. Now, Republicans in nearby Kansas have suffered an early recruiting setback of their own.
Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R, often described one of the few Republican officeholders capable of uniting a state party in the midst of a long-running and increasingly bitter civil war between conservatives and moderates, has decided she will not run for governor. She had been perceived as a top prospect for the job.
Jenkins, a 53-year-old Republican representing the state’s second congressional district, which includes Topeka, said in a statement on Facebook she will leave Congress after her current term ends and won’t seek any office in 2018. She said she will pursue a position within the private sector.
“As such, you should know that I will not be running for any office in 2018. In two years, at the conclusion of this Congress, I plan to retire and explore opportunities to return to the private sector, allowing a new citizen legislator to step up and serve Kansans,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins, who had originally won her 2008 primary as a moderate, proved to be a fairly reliable conservative vote once she got to Congress (91 percent lifetime ACU rating and 73 percent Heritage Action in the last Congress).
Kansas is a Republican state, to be sure — President Trump carried it by 21 points. But Republicans there have fallen on some hard times and are mostly fighting one another. Gov. Sam Brownback, R, who narrowly won re-election in 2014, is suffering historic levels of unpopularity. His 71 percent disapproval and 23 percent approval ratings make him the least popular governor in America, according to a massive, four-month poll taken last year by Morning Consult. This has a lot to do with the state’s massive and ongoing budget woes, for which many blame his 2012 tax reform.
Even as Trump stomped throughout the state, Democrats made modest gains in both houses of the state legislature in the 2016 election. (Republicans still hold supermajorities in both.) On the statewide level, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius demonstrated with two election wins that the opposition party can be competitive, especially when the moderate and conservative factions of the Republican Party are fighting most intensely.
