Kansas Speaks survey shows ‘lots of daylight’ between views on issues and political support

The new Kansas Speaks survey shows the state's residents have a more favorable view of Gov. Laura Kelly than President Donald Trump. She is seen speaking at a July 9, 2025, news conference on water at Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — A new survey shows a gulf between popular opinion and political reality in Kansas, and reveals that few people recognize the name of any candidate for governor in next year’s election.

Most Kansans support unregulated access to abortion, the legalization of recreational marijuana and Medicaid expansion, according to the annual Kansas Speaks survey, in which respondents offered a more favorable view of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly than of Republican President Donald Trump.

About one-third said they knew of former Gov. Jeff Colyer, making him the most recognized candidate for governor.

The survey, conducted by the the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University, questioned 525 Kansas adults about their feelings on a wide range of public policy and political issues. The online survey was conducted between Sept. 26 and Oct. 14, and results were released Monday.

Michael Smith, a political science professor at Emporia State University who worked on the survey, said the results show “lots of daylight” on policy issues between Kansans and Trump, and legislative leadership.

“Clearly these voters are not MAGA. MAGA does not constitute a majority of the people of Kansas or the United States,” Smith said. “These are people that have a very low opinion of the Democratic Party as an organization, because on issues a lot of our respondents look like Democrats, but they voted for Trump.”

About 47% said they were satisfied with Kelly, while 27.3% were dissatisfied. For Trump, 43.5% were satisfied while 46.2% were dissatisfied.

“If you just isolate where voters stand on issues, they appear to be a good deal more progressive than if you ask them their party label,” said Alexandra Middlewood, who worked on the survey and is chair of the political science department at Wichita State University. “And Laura Kelly has been able to wiggle out of that. I’m not even sure if she’s perceived as a Democrat. She’s just perceived as Laura Kelly.”

Among the issues, 64.8% favored legalizing recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older so the state could tax it, and 70.4% support legalizing medical marijuana. The was 70.2% support for Medicaid expansion. And 59.5% agreed that state government should not place any regulations on the circumstances under which women can get abortions.

“We only have two parties in the United States,” Middlewood said. “They have their platforms, but all of those issues kind of get washed out by the other issues that are parts of those platforms. And so you could have someone who supports abortion rights but still votes Republican, because maybe abortion rights is not the most important issue to them, and they have all of these other issues that they care about.”

On immigration, about two-thirds said immigrants contribute to the country’s economic growth and the state’s economic vitality. But 43.7% agreed there were too many immigrants coming into the U.S, and 38.1% agreed that “illegal immigrants” should be put in detention camps.

 

Governor’s race

The survey asked about name recognition and positive or negative views on eight Republican and three Democratic candidates for governor.

Kelly is term limited and can’t seek reelection.

Colyer was the best-known candidate with 35.1% recognition, followed by Secretary of State Scott Schwab at 29.1%, Senate President Ty Masterson at 25.3% and Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt at 24.4%. All are Republicans.

“Most people have never heard of any of these candidates,” Smith said.

Masterson had the highest negative rating of any candidate at 19.5%, followed by Colyer at 17.9%.

Middlewood attributed the negative view of Colyer to his connection to former Gov. Sam Brownback. Colyer served as lieutenant governor under Brownback, then became governor in 2018 when Brownback joined the Trump administration.

For Masterson, she said, “the hardest thing he’s going to have to overcome is just the abysmal satisfaction rates with the Kansas Legislature.” The survey showed just 34% are satisfied with the Legislature while 31.2% are dissatisfied.

Smith said Schmidt’s best option was to let the other candidates fight over conservative voters while she secures moderates.

“There are so many vying to be the most conservative, if they cancel each other’s votes out, she might have a shot,” Smith said.

Republican Joy Eakins, a former Wichita school board member, recorded the highest positive rating at 53.9%, followed by Schmidt at 46.2% and Colyer at 44.8%.

Among Democrats, just 16.6% recognized Sen. Ethan Corson, 16.2% recognized Marty Tuley, a personal trainer from Lawrence, and 15.7% recognized Sen. Cindy Holscher.

 

Survey methods

The architects of the survey weighted results by age, gender, education and, for the first time, party registration.

The decision to use party registration to fine-tune the results followed scrutiny of last year’s poll, which incorrectly predicted Trump would win the state by just 5 percentage points over Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump ended up with a 16-point advantage.

Brett Zollinger, director of the Docking Institute at Fort Hays State, and assistant director Jian Sun, worked with Smith and Middlewood to craft this year’s survey. They chose questions based on past surveys, issues they see in the legislative session and issues of national interest. They relied on national vendor QualtricsXM to build a panel of survey respondents that would closely mirror state demographics.

Of the respondents, 82.5% said they were registered voters.

“You simply have to weight for partisanship,” Smith said. “In the past, what we’ve done is we’ve looked at demographics. So older white people, for example, are more likely to vote Republican, rural people are more likely to vote Republican, and so on and so forth. All of that is true, but there’s an X factor there, which is Republicans are more likely to vote Republican.

“Any demographic you can name, whether it’s age, gender, urban, rural — it still really comes down to just Republicans are more likely to vote Republican. And so you really have to weight for partisanship in and of itself. It’s not just about the demographics anymore.”

The survey also asked about child care, senior care, water conservation, artificial intelligence, gun ownership and perceived causes of homelessness.

Kansas Speaks Survey