In Kansas, Republicans have gone so far off a rightward cliff, some of them are defecting to the Democrats

One of the most high-profile victories for the Democratic Party in this year's midterm elections was Sharice Davids's election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 3rd Congressional District of Kansas, which includes much of the Kansas portion of the Kansas City metropolitan area. Davids became the first Democrat to win election to either house of Congress as a Democrat since 2008, and Davids became one of the first two Native American women to be elected to either house of Congress from any state (Deb Haaland of New Mexico was the other Native American woman elected to the U.S. House in 2018).

Now, Democrats in Kansas are flipping state legislative seats after the votes have been counted in this year's elections. That's because two state senators and one state representative have switched their party affiliation from Republican to Democratic in recent days.

The two state senators who have defected to the Democrats are Dinah Sykes, who represents State Senate District 21, and Barbara Bollier, who represents State Senate District 7. Both districts contain portions of Johnson County, a predominantly suburban county that has trended strongly against the Republican Party in recent years. State Senate District 7 voted heavily for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election (Clinton got 57.33% of the vote in State Senate District 7 in 2016), whereas State Senate District 21 was a district that gave Hillary Clinton a plurality of the vote (47.89%) in the 2016 presidential election. The state representative who has defected to the Democrats is Stephanie Clayton, who represents the Johnson County-based State House District 19, which was a district where Hillary Clinton got a majority (53.76%) of the vote in the 2016 presidential election. All three districts overlap with the 3rd Congressional District of Kansas, and some voters in Johnson County are represented by Bollier in the state senate and Clayton in the state house. The 2016 presidential elections results by state legislative district are courtesy of Daily Kos Elections.

There are key similarities between Sykes, Bollier, and Clayton that have driven them into the Democratic Party. They're politically moderate, and they represent constituencies that have turned against a Republican Party that, in Kansas and nationally, has become a vehicle for destructive far-right political ideology that is against the political values of themselves and a significant number of their constituents.

There may be more Kansas Republican state legislators who may defect to the Democrats. Jim Ward, the Minority Leader of the Kansas House of Representatives, told Talking Points Memo earlier today that there is a concerted effort by Democratic leadership to convince "three or four" more Republican state legislators to switch to the Democratic Party:

Kansas House Minority Leader Jim Ward (D) said that, in addition to the three lawmakers who defected from the Republican Party in recent days, the Democratic leadership is eyeing “three or four” more lawmakers who might be compelled to flip.

“We’re not done,” Ward told TPM on Wednesday. “We’re gonna continue to recruit.”

Ward attributes the party change of state Sens. Barbara Bollier and Dinah Sykes and Rep. Stephanie Clayton to two main factors: the inhospitality of the Republican Party and the leftward political shift of the districts they represent.

He said that the three women, “policy wonks, pragmatic types,” were turned off by the GOP’s role in a court battle to get sufficient funding for K-12 public education, objection to Medicaid expansion and routine blocking of bills from the floor.

It's becoming increasingly clear that the Republican Party is losing many suburban areas across the country, and Johnson County, Kansas is a textbook example of how the Republican Party's brand of far-right politics has alienated voters in suburbia.