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The Results
Once again, the Republican nominee has won the Kansas Senate Election!
Roger Marshall (Republican) won the election with a comfortable lead, gaining about 53.6% of the votes whereas Democrat Barbara Bollier was only able to scoop up 41.4% of votes (about 5% of votes still need to be counted).
Although this seems surprising given that nearly every poll between August and October had Bollier and Marshall neck and neck, it is worth remembering that Republicans have dominated Kansas' senate for almost a hundred years in a row now! In fact, Bollier started off the race in the lead, before Marshall took total command, winning by over 200,000 votes and nearly every county as shown below:
Winner by County: Lead per County:
As illustrated in the graph on the left, Marshall won almost every county by a significant lead. However, as shown in the graph on the right, Bollier won her counties by the largest leads, thereby allowing her to stay somewhat in the race. Bollier also won most of the large, more industrialized cities, with populations that were often ten times bigger than other counties! But Marshall's efforts in securing Amy Barrett to the Supreme Court, repealing the ACA, and building a wall at the border attracted more of Kansas' citizens than Bollier's primary desires to increase public education.
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In summary, our prediction was accurate! Polling data was too close to determine which candidate would win, but the wild card forces (including support from President Trump, who also won Kansas by a large margin) ended up allowing Marshall to win. Marshall focused on doing what Kansans had known and loved for the past ninety years, and so he was able to pull ahead of the opposition.
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