This query was placed in the Reason Magazine blog…

Regarding Tom Frank’s book What’s the Matter with Kansas:

If what’s wrong with Kansas is that they elect Right-leaning Republicans… when was anything right with Kansas?

2000:
Bush: 58.04% 6
Gore: 37.24%
1996
Dole 54.29%
Clinton 36.08%
1992
Bush 38.88%
Clinton 33.74%
1988
Bush 55.79%
Dukakis 42.56%
1984
Reagan 66.27%
Mondale 32.60%
1980
Reagan 57.85%
Carter 33.29%
1976
Ford 52.49%
Carter 44.94%
1972
Nixon 67.66%
McGovern 29.50%
1968
Nixon 54.84%
Humphrey 34.72%
1964
Johnson 54.09%
Goldwater 45.06%
1960
Nixon 60.45%
Kennedy 39.10%
1956
Eisenhower 65.44%
Stevenson 34.21%
1952
Eisenhower 68.77%
Stevenson 30.50%
1948
Dewey 53.63%
Truman 44.61%
1944
Dewey 60.25%
Roosevelt 39.18%
1940
Willkie 56.86%
Roosevelt 42.40%
1936
Roosevelt 53.67%
Landon 45.95%
1932
Roosevelt 53.56%
Hoover 44.13%
1928
Hoover 72.02%
Smith 27.06%
1924
Coolidge 61.54%
Davis 23.60%
1920
Harding 64.75%
Cox 32.52%
1916
Wilson 49.95%
Hughes 44.09%
1912
Wilson 39.30%
Roosevelt 32.88%
1908
Taft 52.46%
Bryan 42.88%
1904
Roosevelt 64.81%
Parker 26.23%
1900
McKinley 52.56%
Bryan 45.96%
1896
Bryan 51.32%
McKinley 47.63%

You have to go back to 1896 through 1912 to see the more clearly “progressive” candidate garner the Kansas vote noticably above the national average (and even that is befuddled by the 1900 election of McKinley. owned by more corporate interests than just about any president in American history.) Other than that, whatever’s wrong with Kansas has been wrong before the Cultural Shifts of the 60s and the subsequent backlash, and was wrong with Kansas as Roosevelt introduced his New Deal Reforms (in what is the largest Electoral Landslide in US History*, Roosevelt really only squeaked by Landon in 1936.)

Looking at the late nineteenth century voting record, through the post Lincoln era that historians have tended to think of as stacked with unimpressive presidents, I’m struck by how often a third party pretty well threw the election either to the Democratic and Republican Party in Kansas, but here it seems to be a 50-50 state.

*for the nay-sayers who’d look at Reagan’s 49 state victory over Mondale as the pinacle of Presidential Landslides: Reagan: 525 ev, 97.58% Mondale: 13 ev, 2.42% … Roosevelt: 523 ev 98.49% ; Landon: 8 ev 1.51%. Landon won Maine and Vermont. Now, here’s a question: What’s Right With Vermont?

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