Kansas Gov. Brownback ekes out win against Dem opponent

Gov. Sam Brownback (R) narrowly won reelection in Kansas on Tuesday night.

Brownback faced a tough race from Democrat Paul Davis, who criticized Brownback’s handling of budget issues. But Kansas will remain a state solely represented by Republicans.

{mosads}The conservative governor implemented drastic budget changes in his first term with across-the-board tax cuts causing revenue shortages for programs such as education. Many centrist Republicans sided with Davis as a result, but it wasn’t enough to stop the incumbent’s victory. 

David ended up losing Johnson County — Kansas’s most heavily populated.

“Things looked good, then they didn’t,” University of Kansas Political Science Professor Burdett Loomis told The Hill. “Davis needed to win Johnson County and lost by 3,000.”

It took hours after polls closed at 9 p.m. for The Associated Press to finally call the race. With slightly more than 80 percent of polling stations reporting, Brownback was winning by just 2 percentage points.

Despite conservative tendencies, Kansas has elected Democratic governors in the recent past, including Kathleen Sebelius, who later joined the Obama administration as secretary of Health and Human Services. Brownback succeeded her with an overwhelming victory in 2010.

Once Brownback took over the governorship, Kansas was described as a petri dish for the implementation of Tea Party policies of limited government. It’s unclear if after such a tough reelection Brownback will ease up on massive cuts to state programs.