Kansas voters (yes…Kansas!) made history in the midterm elections of 2018 — and repeated it in 2020 with her re-election! — when they selected SHARICE DAVIDS to be their congresswoman. Davids, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, will be the first Native American woman to serve in Congress — a distinction she shared with New Mexico’s Deb Haaland (now serving as Secretary of the Interior), who also won  — and the first openly LGBT person to represent the state of Kansas.

The political newcomer defeated four-term incumbent Republican Representative Kevin Yoder to capture Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District. It’s the first time a Democrat has won the suburban Kansas City seat in a decade. She did it again this year.

“We have the opportunity to reset expectations about what people think when they think of Kansas,” Davids said during her victory speech before hundreds of supporters at the Embassy Suites in Olathe. “We know there are so many of us who welcome everyone, who see everyone and who know that everyone should have the opportunity to succeed.”  Davids had 54 percent of the vote to  her Republican opponent’s 44 percent.

“It’s significant beyond Kansas,” said Davis Hammett, an LGBT rights activist from Topeka. “This is significant to all LGBT folks in the Midwest. She really feels like the voice for all the LGBT folks in the Midwest. And I know that there’s a similar feeling in Native American communities.”

In 2022, Kansas went on to defy expectations — to say nothing of the Supreme Court —  when voters reaffirmed abortion is constitutionally protected, leaving in place a 2019 decision by the state Supreme Court. Their vote ruled that a person has the right to personal autonomy and applied strict scrutiny to regulating abortion. The Kansas legislature would not be able to ban or enact further restrictions on abortion without a constitutional amendment. 

Way to go Kansas!