How are candidates in Kansas' 3rd District dealing with Trump, Biden? From a safe distance

“Rep. Davids is grateful for the President’s collaboration in rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure and lowering health care costs, but has also pushed back against his administration and party leaders when their priorities do not align with Kansans’,” said Zac Donley, Davids’ spokesman. “She’s shown she’ll work with anyone, including federal officials and local leaders from both parties, to make life easier for people in the Third District.”

While Democrats like Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, has celebrated Biden’s attempts to forgive student loan debt, Davids has openly criticized the effort, saying he should instead be focused on making higher education more affordable.

The Republican candidates are critical of Davids’ claims of being a moderate, saying she hasn’t done enough to push back against the Biden administration, particularly on immigration.

“The voters in the Third District are smart, and they know that while Rep. Davids talks a good game, she goes to Washington and votes the party line,” Reddy, one of the Republicans running against Davids said. “She has done nothing to fix the situation at the border, slow the rise in crime in the KC metro, and reduce the cost of gas and groceries.”

Davids supported a bipartisan immigration deal that would have made it easier for Biden to limit border crossings. The package faltered after Republicans said it wasn’t conservative enough to win their support. She’s also opposing some of the hard-line immigration packages passed by House Republicans that have failed to get traction in the Senate.

Kansas GOP moving farther right

Meanwhile, both Reddy and Crnkovich are trying to keep their own party’s nominee at an arm’s length.

It’s a difficult task in a Republican primary, which features a much different – and more conservative – electorate than normally shows up in the fall for the general election.

Increasingly, the Kansas Republican Party has become a loyal arm of the Trump wing of the party, rather than the more establishment wing that could be found in former Sen. Bob Dole.

After the annual spending bill passed last month, the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, Mike Brown was critical of the Kansas Republicans who supported it – Sen. Jerry Moran and Rep. Jake LaTurner.

“For those who voted for the $1.2T spending package, please hear me loud and clear: the base is mad as hell,” Brown wrote in his weekly newsletter following the vote.

Without a hard-line conservative in the race, Reddy and Crnkovich haven’t raced to secure an endorsement from Trump, unlike competitive Republican primaries in other states and districts.

Instead, Reddy has turned to racking up endorsements from congressional leaders like Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, and Rep. Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership PAC has donated the Reddy’s campaign, as has the leadership PAC of Rep. Richard Hudson, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Hudson went KCMO and told host Pete Mundo he supports Reddy, but NRCC spokeswoman Delanie Bomar said Hudson has not endorsed in the race.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already been quick to use those endorsements to tie Reddy to the Trump-wing of the Republican Party as it tries to build support around voters’ fears about what a second Trump term could mean for democratic norms in Washington.

“Voters increasingly, yes they’re loyal to their parties, but really what tends to motivate them even more than positive feelings about their own party, are negative feelings about the other party,” Hunt said.