There are three key races to watch in Kansas, where voters are casting ballots in Tuesday’s primaries. The big question in the Republican governor’s primary is whether Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach can pull off an upset against sitting Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer. Kobach just secured the endorsement of President Donald Trump (he’s a big Trump ally). There’s a big field of candidates competing on the Democratic side as well. In addition to the governor’s race, Democrats are watching two House primaries closely. Kansas’s Second Congressional District is an open seat this year. The lone Democratic candidate, Paul Davis (a former candidate for governor), is waiting to see which Republican emerges from a crowded primary field. Next door in the Third Congressional District, a number of Democrats are vying to compete against incumbent Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder in a district that narrowly voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Polls close at 8 pm Eastern. Vox has live results below, powered by Decision Desk. Kansas governor primary elections Current Gov. Jeff Colyer and Secretary of State Kris Kobach are leading the pack of Republicans for governor. Jim Barnett and Ken Selzer are also part of a larger group that will be on the ballot. Colyer — who took over the governor’s position after Sam Brownback became ambassador at large for international religious freedom earlier this year — has painted himself as the more low-key alternative to Kobach, whose close ties to Trump and broader notoriety precede him. Kobach has long been known for touting hardline anti-illegal immigration policies and is among those most associated with the president’s theories on voter fraud. A number of Democrats are competing as well, including former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, state Sen. Laura Kelly, and former Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Josh Svaty. Kelly is seen as the leading candidate given her strong fundraising numbers, though she’s recently been snared in a controversy over a vote supporting voter ID laws. Kelly was recruited to the race by former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Cook Political Report rates the race as Likely Republican. Kansas’s Second Congressional District: an open seat is looking like a possible pickup for Democrats There are a lot of Republicans competing in this district, including state Sens. Steve Fitzgerald, Dennis Pyle, and Caryn Tyson, state Rep. Kevin Jones, and former state Rep. Doug Mays. Rounding out the list are Basehor City Council member Vernon Fields and Army vet Steve Watkins. Throughout the primary election, there’s been no clear frontrunner in the bunch. Whoever wins will face off against former state Rep. Paul Davis, who unsuccessfully ran for governor against former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback in 2014. Cook Political Report rates this district R+10, but if Democrats are hoping to flip a House seat in conservative Kansas, this may be their best shot. Davis has already far outraised all of the Republican candidates, has the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and is saving all his money for his general election competitor. Kansas’s Third Congressional District: can a Sanders-style progressive win? There are seven Democrats running in this primary, but four names stand out: MMA fighter Sharice Davids, former Bernie Sanders staffer Brent Welder, teacher Tom Niermann, and business leader Sylvia Williams. The winner will compete against incumbent Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder, in office since 2011 (Yoder isn’t facing a primary challenger). Welder, in particular, is looking to test the theory of whether a Sanders-style progressive can win a primary in a conservative state. Cook rates the district R+4, and it also went for Clinton in 2016, so there’s a definite chance it could flip this year.<doc-sep>After a quiet July, the primary calendar roars back to life in August. Here at FiveThirtyEight, that means putting our trusty primary-preview-writing pen to paper (did you miss us?) and cranking up the ol’ live blog (join us Tuesday night as we digest some results). We’ve got four states coming at you this week: Missouri Races to watch: Proposition A Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern The primary is a formality in the one Missouri campaign that everyone’s following this year: the U.S. Senate race. Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill will almost certainly face (spoiler alert!) Republican Josh Hawley, the state attorney general, in one of the marquee matchups of the 2018 Senate map. Nevertheless, Missouri will still play host to one of Tuesday’s most consequential elections: a ballot measure, Proposition A, that would allow non-union members who benefit from a collective-bargaining agreement to not pay union dues. Missouri’s Republican-dominated legislature originally passed Senate Bill 19, commonly referred to as a “right-to-work” law, in 2017, but outraged labor unions turned to an already-energized liberal electorate and collected three times the number of signatures needed to subject the law to a voter referendum. After being dealt heavy blows in other Midwestern states and, recently, the U.S. Supreme Court, organized labor has gone all-in to defeat the right-to-work law in Missouri, raising $16.1 million and dwarfing the $4.3 million raised by supporters of Proposition A. (Since the vote is technically on whether to adopt Senate Bill 19, a “yes” vote is a vote for right-to-work rules.) So far, it looks like they’re succeeding: According to the most recent poll, the referendum is poised to fail 56 percent to 38 percent. The vote is being watched nationally and will be viewed as either a needed symbolic win or a devastating symbolic loss for the labor movement. Kansas Races to watch: 2nd and 3rd congressional districts; governor Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern in most of the state, 9 p.m. Eastern in a few westerly counties After Republican Rep. Lynn Jenkins announced her retirement from Kansas’s 2nd Congressional District and former state House Minority Leader Paul Davis said he would run for the Democrats, Republicans openly fretted that none of their seven candidates was strong enough to beat him, despite the district’s R+20 partisan lean — a measure of how much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning an area is than the country as a whole. Now, for better or for worse, they’ll pick one of those seven. Spending on behalf of Army veteran and former Iditarod musher Steve Watkins — half from his own campaign, half from a super PAC run by his father — has totaled more than all the other Republican candidates’ spending combined. Anyone else the GOP nominates — say, state Sen. Caryn Tyson, state Sen. Steve Fitzgerald or former state House Speaker Doug Mays — could struggle to play financially in Davis’s league (he’s raised $1.6 million). The Democratic primary is anyone’s ballgame in the 3rd Congressional District, where Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder is defending an R+4 seat. Each wing of the party is represented. Bernie Sanders has endorsed former labor lawyer Brent Welder. Emily’s List is spending $400,000 to promote Native American activist Sharice Davids, who could probably beat you up. As a teacher at an elite private high school, Tom Niermann has the moderate cred to win over country-club Republicans in this well-educated district around Kansas City. That would normally suggest he’d give Democrats the best chance to win in November, but a poll sponsored by a progressive group also showed Welder doing well. Sensing the chance for a pickup, Democrats have their first contested primary for Kansas governor since 1998. State Sen. Laura Kelly is the pick of the local political establishment, including former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, and it shows in her muscular fundraising. Former state Secretary of Agriculture Joshua Svaty’s campaign is almost like a modern-day incarnation of the Populist Party, the progressive agrarian political movement that won five states (including Kansas) in the 1892 presidential election. Svaty has devoted his campaign to winning back rural voters by combining liberal positions, like Medicaid expansion, with conservative ones, like opposition to abortion. The campaign has been defined by the Planned Parenthood-endorsed Kelly attacking Svaty for his pro-life record and Svaty attacking Kelly for her votes against gun restrictions and for voting restrictions. Former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, a more mainstream liberal, has emerged mostly unscathed. He is running to be Kansas’s first black governor and could be a strong general-election candidate despite the state’s R+23 partisan lean. Elevated to the office early this year after the resignation of Sam Brownback, Gov. Jeff Colyer is running for his first full term. But first he has to beat Secretary of State Kris Kobach in the Republican primary. Kobach is the rare down-ballot state executive to have a national profile, thanks to his divisive role on President Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity and zealous efforts to prosecute voter fraud (despite scant evidence that it exists in any abundance). That’s left him with a higher profile than Colyer but also higher unfavorable ratings among Republicans. Embarrassing headlines have beset Kobach throughout the campaign: In April, he was held in contempt for disobeying a court order. In June, a court overturned his main policy priority, a law requiring that Kansans provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote, as unconstitutional. Just last week, ProPublica reported on how Kobach — doing his best Lyle Lanley impression — convinced several small towns to pass strict anti-immigration ordinances, then personally profited from defending them in court, with little success. There’s little question that Kobach is Republicans’ weakest play in the general election: A mid-July poll showed Colyer leading Kelly by 10 points, but Kobach trailing the Democrat by 1. Michigan Races to watch: U.S. Senate; 1st, 6th, 9th, 11th and 13th congressional districts; governor Polls close: 8 p.m. Eastern in most of the state, 9 p.m. Eastern in four counties on the Upper Peninsula The Republican primary for Michigan governor is a question of who is more in touch with the modern GOP: Trump or outgoing Gov. Rick Snyder. So far, Trump is winning handily. The president endorsed state Attorney General Bill Schuette last September, and Schuette has led in primary polls throughout the race. The latest average has him 16 points ahead of Lt. Gov. Brian Calley. Schuette has kept his opponent down by reminding primary voters that Calley renounced his support for Trump after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape in 2016 — an episode that likely played a role in Trump’s decision to endorse Calley’s opponent. Meanwhile, Calley’s loyalty to Snyder (who has endorsed him) may hurt more than it helps, given the governor’s -15 net approval rating. Schuette has even prosecuted members of the Snyder administration for their actions related to the Flint water crisis, while Calley has been the face of the administration’s defense. Even the specter of an FBI investigation into Schuette’s use of state resources doesn’t seem to have done much to change the trajectory of the race. For Democrats, former state Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer has led most recent polls by 20 points or more, but there are a few warning signs for her campaign. The highest-quality poll of the race showed a much closer contest and came as her closest rival, Shri Thanedar, reported pouring $10 million of his own money into the race. Thanedar is campaigning as the progressive antidote to Whitmer’s establishment persona, but his business record and level of commitment to his positions (he reportedly considered running as a Republican) have been called into question. Perhaps to blunt Thanedar’s momentum, Sanders recently announced his support for former Detroit health director Abdul El-Sayed, and Sanders and fellow progressive hero Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist who recently won the Democratic nomination for a New York congressional seat, have committed to an aggressive campaign schedule on El-Sayed’s behalf. Whitmer is likely Democrats’ strongest general-election candidate for this slightly Republican-leaning (R+0.3) state: She is the only one who comfortably defeats Schuette in polling, and Republicans have covertly attacked her from the left in an effort to defeat her in the primary.<doc-sep>The Republican Governors Association and a number of high-level party operatives counseled Mr. Trump against siding with Mr. Kobach, because polls show he is unpopular with the general electorate in Kansas and would provide Democrats an opening to take back the governorship. But Mr. Trump has grown fond of his king-making abilities after weeks of successfully intervening for candidates who went on to win Republican nominating contests from South Carolina to Georgia to Alabama. Further, Mr. Kobach was an early and loyal supporter of Mr. Trump, endorsing him shortly before Kansas’ presidential nominating caucus, and has developed a rapport with the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump, Jr. And he served earlier this year as a member of the administration’s short-lived voter integrity commission. [Read about how Kris Kobach built a national profile.] Mr. Trump telephoned some of his political advisers Monday morning to raise the possibility of getting behind Mr. Kobach, according to a Republican official familiar with the call. They relayed to him that if the party nominated a firebrand like Mr. Kobach for governor, it could have a ripple effect in the House, energizing Democrats in a pair of competitive Kansas congressional races. But Mr. Trump indicated he felt an abiding loyalty to Mr. Kobach and wanted to help an ally, the official said. West Wing aides had hoped to keep the Kansas race away from Mr. Trump’s line of sight, but were uneasy about what he may do during an extended, and unsupervised, trip to his New Jersey golf resort. And that is where the president unfurled his endorsement, blindsiding the governors association and Mr. Colyer, who just a few days ago praised the president in an interview, and made the case for why he should not side with Mr. Kobach. Mr. Kobach said in a telephone interview that he had spoken to Mr. Trump on Saturday but that he did not know the endorsement would be coming until he got a call from the president’s aides Monday morning. “He makes a big splash at a critical time,” Mr. Kobach said with evident delight, noting that he would be adding the endorsement to last-minute digital advertising and including it in scripts for get-out-the-vote calls.<doc-sep>
A loophole in the eligibility requirements to run for state office in Kansas has ushered in a young crop of candidates: four teenagers who filed candidacies in primaries for the state’s top two offices. "I felt there was a lack of youth engagement in politics and also there were many issues that were not being addressed by the Republican or Democratic Party and I felt I could change that," Jack Bergeson, a 17-year-old Democratic candidate for governor in the Sunflower state, told ABC News. "That’s why I got into the race." There are no minimum age restrictions to run for office in Kansas, and after exploiting this oversight, this group of high schoolers — including Republican candidates Joseph Tutera Jr., 17, and Tyler Ruzich, 17, who is on a ticket with Dominic Scavuzzo, 17, a candidate for lieutenant governor, plus Bergeson — will share the ballot in Tuesday's gubernatorial primaries with current and former state leaders. "Under Kansas law, there is no law governing the qualifications for governor, not one," Bryan Caskey, director of elections at the Kansas secretary of state’s office told the Kansas City Star. "So there’s seriously nothing on the books that lays out anything, no age, no residency, no experience. Nothing." As for their credentials for state chief executive? Ruzich, who is a senior at Shawnee Mission North high school in Johnson County and will be turning 18 in September, lists involvement in the debate team, school government and the Prairie Village's Teen Council among his experience. He is also the only public school student in the race. In an interview with ABC News, Ruzich stressed that it is his ideas to empower youth, and not his age, that is driving his candidacy. "We don't have a voice at the table when policies are being made," he said. "I can be a spokesperson for the idea that young people need to be involved." Echoing that sentiment is Tutera, who said, "I feel like even if I get zero votes today, my job will be accomplished because all I'm trying to do is show young people that if I can find haven in the GOP, they can too." Though they have no political experience and are not able to vote in the primaries, these young candidates view their age as an asset — putting them more in touch with the needs of a state that has struggled in recent years due to dramatic budget cuts under former Gov. Sam Brownback. Bergeson underscored the significance of his age as a selling point for his candidacy. "People are no longer interested in experienced politicians who have the traditional resume," he said. "People are looking for someone who can fight for them and I think I was the candidate that was out front with that in this race." Earlier this year, the Kansas state legislature passed a bill that will impose age requirements for candidates for statewide offices. The law, which was approved by the governor in May after passing both chambers, amends the current qualifications for candidacy to institute a provision for age: a candidate must be 25 or older to run for governor or lieutenant governor. But the change will not take effect until January 1, 2019, keeping the four teenagers in the race for the 2018 cycle. If elected, one of the teens could potentially be sitting in the governor’s mansion in 2019, but their chances to be the next top elected official in the state are slim. The governor's race boasts a wide-open and crowded field, after President Donald Trump selected Brownback to be Ambassador for International Religious Freedom. The top two contenders for the Republican primary are Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer and Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a very close ally of Trump who secured the endorsement of the president Monday in Trump-signature fashion. As a benchmark race for Republicans, this primary is a battle between an establishment candidate and a Trump-like competitor. Despite garnering support from the White House, Kobach trailed Colyer in fundraising for most of the year, and only surpassed Colyer after hauling in more than $1.5 million from his running mate, Wink Hartman, according to the Associated Press. In a state under Republican-control, the Democratic Party is holding a contested gubernatorial primary for the first time since 1998, according to FiveThirtyEight.