Close U.S. House contests a rarity

boydaSince 1998, “just four of Kansas’ U.S. House or Senate races — fewer than one per election cycle — have been decided by margins smaller than 10 percentage points,” observed Harris News Service. Three of them were efforts to unseat Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Lenexa; in the fourth, in 2006, Nancy Boyda upset Rep. Jim Ryun. Will 2008 be different? Hard to say outside of Democrat Boyda’s district, where Ryun and state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins are in a GOP primary fight. “It’s very possible that it could be the most exciting election year in many Kansans’ lifetimes,” said Bob Beatty, an associate professor of political science at Washburn University.

6 Comments

  1. usaproud4567
    Posted April 20, 2008 at 10:04 am | Permalink

    Nancy Boyda is a Voter’s representative. Let’s hope she doesn’t become indebted to the large PACs and change like most politicians do.

  2. darkanonm
    Posted April 20, 2008 at 11:32 am | Permalink

    Exciting? Politics as usual. Kinda like going to a feedlot and wading.

  3. Maggotpunk
    Posted April 20, 2008 at 12:23 pm | Permalink

    Already the Republicans have resorted to breaking laws to try to beat Boyda. The Republican party has illegally coordinated efforts with Freedom’s Watch, a 501(c)group, to campaign against her. Republicans are basically admitting they can’t win a fair election.

  4. Chrisfrommactown
    Posted April 20, 2008 at 2:56 pm | Permalink

    Hey maggotpuke, why not go somewhere else and spread your lies. As much as I would like to see her sent packing, Its probably not going to happen. If Jenkins would get out and throw her support to Ryun the seat would flip, but the con/mod bloodbath in the primary will ensure Boyda wins, even without Sebelius’s coattails to ride. Also, if it appears that Pat Roberts may be in trouble, the RNC may decide to concede the 2nd district and divert their limited funds to save Roberts bacon.

  5. RobertL
    Posted April 20, 2008 at 7:25 pm | Permalink

    There are very few competitive House races because every 10 years legislators in most states draw lines to protect incumbents from the majority party, and, as a result of deals, often of both parties. Lines should be drawn by nonpolitical independent commissions to unite communities of interest and give voters real choices, but instead we get bizarrely shaped districts (and Kansas is relatively sane compared to lots of states) drawn for partisan purposes. The outcome is very little competition in a large majority of districts nationwide

  6. Maggotpunk
    Posted April 20, 2008 at 11:14 pm | Permalink

    Funny how my “lies” are reported in the media:
    http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/04/republicans-ill.html

    Had this lazy conservative taken a couple seconds to do a google search he wouldn’t have embarrassed himself. Oh well, I never accused the conservatives of being hard working.