Why these voters, and why now
With the Senate race rated a Toss Up by Cook since October 6, swing voters are the Kansas voters neither campaign can write off. Each of them holds a view on the right and a view on the left among the issues they care most about, so both campaigns have something to build on. For most of them, healthcare is the issue where they lean right: 189,125 of the state's 262,168 swing voters lean right on healthcare and left on housing, crime or schools.
On healthcare, nearly all of them want lower costs through competition and choice, with people who have pre-existing conditions protected and decisions left to patients and their doctors. Where they break the other way is the second issue. The largest group, younger on average, wants housing within reach: tenants kept stable and far more homes built. Others want public safety that funds violence prevention and mental-health response and holds police to a high standard while keeping them on serious crime. Others put strong neighborhood schools first, with teachers paid well and tutoring and after-school programs funded.
A smaller, older group runs the opposite way. On healthcare they want coverage expanded, costs capped and surprise bills and drug prices reined in, and on housing they favor property rights, more supply and less regulation under local control. These voters are drawn from all three registrations, and voters with each view live side by side, so no county or town can be split this way, but each voter can.
Roger Marshall and Adam Hamilton are scheduled to meet on October 21 in Nexstar's Debate Night in Kansas, which lists healthcare among its topics, and Kansas counties began mailing requested absentee ballots on October 14. In PharosGraph's weekly read of the race, healthcare and rural hospitals has ranked second in every run since August 27. Housing and crime don't make the race's top eight and education sits near the bottom of it, so for most of these voters the issue that pulls against healthcare is one the race ranks low.
Kansas's swing voters are younger than the state's voters as a whole and less likely to turn out. The largest numbers live in Johnson County and Sedgwick County, followed by Shawnee County, Wyandotte County and Leavenworth County.
PharosGraph ranks these audiences weekly and refreshes them monthly, so a campaign activating now reaches this fall's voters and not a list built in the spring. The Swing Voter audience, the position bands on healthcare, crime and education, and the Persuade and GOTV audiences for the Senate race are available now through L2 DataMapping and in LiveRamp. PharosGraph scores every registered voter in the country on the same issues, so the same split can be drawn for any state. In Kansas, ballots are already in the mail, so campaigns and issue groups talking about healthcare should reach these voters before the October 21 debate.