Kansas Senate

2020 Election Update

Heading into the 2020 election, Republicans controlled the Kansas Senate 29 to 11. Democrats flipped two seats (SDs 5 and 8) and lost two seats (SDs 18 and 19) for no net gain. EveryDistrict endorsed both successful Democratic challengers, Jeff Pittman and Cindy Holscher. EveryDistrict also endorsed Lindsey Constance (SD 10), Rachel Willis (SD 20), and Jim Ward (SD 28).

The below table shows 2020 and 2018 election results for the Kansas Senate. The LDI scores are for the 2020 cycle. EveryDistrict will release new scores and district rankings after the redistricting process.

2018 Election Update

In November 2018, Republicans controlled the Kansas State Senate 28-9 with one Independent. The Kansas State Senate was not on the ballot in 2018; all seats will be on the ballot in 2020.

In December 2018, two Republican State Senators (Barbara Bollier, SD 7 and Dinah Sykes, SD 21) changed their party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, leaving control at 28-11-1. In 2019, John Doll (SD 39) rejoined the Republican party, giving Republicans a 29-11 majority.

Understanding the Map

EveryDistrict’s Legislative District Index (LDI) is the gold standard of state legislative competitiveness. Our LDI ranks state legislative districts on a scale from 100 to -100, using statewide elections data. Districts with a score of 100 would vote for statewide Democratic candidates by an average of 100 points (with the Democratic candidate receiving 100% of the vote); districts with a score of -100 would vote for statewide Republican candidates by an average of 100 points (with the Republican candidate receiving 100% of the vote). For a more realistic example, a district with a score of 10 would vote for statewide Democratic candidates by an average of 10 points (meaning we would expect the Democratic state legislative candidate to win with 55% of the vote compared to the Republican winning 45% of the vote).

After the 2018 election, EveryDistrict reviewed and enhanced our LDI system, improving the accuracy of the metric with new methodologies and the most recent electoral data.

For more information about EveryDistrict’s LDI, please click here.