Dorothy has left Kansas

Candidates in Tuesday’s 4th District congressional election made their final arguments on Monday, with Republican Ron Estes rallying with a popular GOP senator and Democrat James Thompson greeting voters in downtown Wichita.

“I’ve heard people whose opinions I respect tell me they think it would be single digits,” said Clay Barker, the executive director of the Kansas Republican Party.Barker said that the party has focused on turning out diehard Republican voters.“We always thought turnout would be 20 percent, maybe a little lower, so we focused on the voters that we had to get,” he said.Nearly 13,000 GOP voters had cast ballots in advance by mail or in person compared to about 10,900 Democrats as of Monday morning, according to data provided by the Republican Party. Another 3,400 unaffiliated voters, who could tip the balance, had also cast ballots.

“This is already a victory,” Thompson continued, because it proves that by taking the fight to working-class voters, Democrats can make even the deepest red districts competitive.“I grew up in poverty,” Thompson said. “I want to give people the same chance I had.”