Prof. Roger A. McEowen
Overview
There is a political problem developing in Kansas and, more broadly, throughout rural America that deserves more serious discussion than it usually receives. It is a problem of political structure. The problem is this: as population becomes increasingly concentrated in a relatively small number of metropolitan areas, the political interests of rural communities can become increasingly irrelevant to statewide elections. That should be a significant concern. The constitutional system was never designed simply to allow the largest population centers to exercise unchecked political power over everyone else. Kansas provides a striking illustration.
Governor Wins, But Loses Almost the Entire State Geographically
Consider the last two Kansas gubernatorial elections. In 2018, Laura Kelly defeated Kris Kobach in a three-way race. Kelly received approximately 48 percent of the vote, while Kobach received about 43 percent and independent Greg Orman about 6.5 percent. Yet Kelly carried only nine of Kansas’s 105 counties. Those nine included the state’s largest population centers. In 2022, Kelly again won the governorship, this time receiving 49.54 percent of the vote to Derek Schmidt’s 47.33 percent. But she again carried only a small fraction of the state’s counties – eight counties (7.6 percent). In other words, a candidate can become governor of Kansas while being rejected by voters in 97 out of 105 counties.
That does not make the election illegitimate. A statewide popular vote is a statewide popular vote. But it ought to make us ask a more fundamental question: Is a system that consistently allows five or six metropolitan counties to determine the governor necessarily the best system for a state whose economic foundation remains overwhelmingly dependent upon agriculture, energy, manufacturing, natural resources and rural communities?
Kansas has changed demographically. That is undeniable. But demographic change does not necessarily mean that constitutional structures should be designed so that rural Kansas eventually becomes politically invisible.
The Recent Kansas Judicial Vote
The August 2026 vote on the proposed constitutional amendment concerning selection of Kansas Supreme Court justices provides another interesting example. The amendment would have abolished the existing Supreme Court Nominating Commission and replaced the current appointment system with direct election of Supreme Court justices. Kansas voters rejected the proposal by approximately 61 percent to 39 percent. But here is the part that deserves attention: the proposal was approved in more than half of Kansas’s counties. That produces a fascinating constitutional question. If a proposal can win a majority of the counties but lose decisively statewide, what exactly does that tell us about the political structure of Kansas? It tells us that geography and population are increasingly moving in opposite political directions.
The same phenomenon can occur in reverse. A candidate or constitutional proposition can win overwhelming support across dozens of rural counties and still lose because the population concentrated in a handful of metropolitan counties produces a larger aggregate vote. Again, that is not necessarily unfair. But it is a warning sign.
The Founders Understood that Geography Matters
One of the great misunderstandings of American government is the idea that democracy necessarily means pure majoritarianism. It does not. The United States Constitution deliberately created a system in which political representation is not based exclusively upon raw population. The United States Senate gives every state two senators regardless of population. The House is population-based. The presidency is selected through the Electoral College, which combines population-based representation with the equal representation of states. Why? Because America was designed as a federal republic – not simply as one enormous democracy in which the largest population centers could permanently dictate the political direction of everyone else. The Electoral College recognizes something important: states are political communities, not merely collections of individual voters. That principle deserves consideration at the state level as well.
What would a Kansas Electoral College look like?
I am not suggesting that Kansas should simply copy the federal Electoral College. But Kansas could consider an analogous system for statewide executive offices. Imagine, for example, that Kansas created a State Electoral College composed of representatives from its state Senate districts. Each Senate district would cast one electoral vote for governor based upon the result within that district. The candidate who received a majority of electoral votes would become governor. Such a system would still involve elections. It would still allow every voter to participate. But it would change the incentive structure. A gubernatorial candidate could no longer simply run up enormous margins in Johnson County and Sedgwick County and potentially overcome weak support throughout the rest of the state. Instead, candidates would have to compete across geographic regions. Western Kansas would matter. North-central Kansas would matter. Southeast Kansas would matter. The Flint Hills would matter. The High Plains would matter. And the candidate who wanted to become governor would have to build a coalition broad enough to govern the entire state. That is precisely the kind of political incentive a representative republic ought to encourage.
The Constitutional Problem
But there is an important legal caveat. The federal Supreme Court’s “one person, one vote” doctrine imposes substantial equal-population requirements on legislative districts. Evenwel v. Abbott,1 for example, reaffirmed the principle that legislative districts must have substantially equal populations. Consequently, simply giving a rural county one electoral vote regardless of its population would almost certainly invite serious constitutional litigation. But that does not end the discussion. There are other possibilities.
Use existing legislative districts. Rather than giving each county an electoral vote, Kansas could use its existing Senate districts, which are already constitutionally apportioned based upon population. That would avoid the most obvious county-based malapportionment problem while still creating geographic electoral units.
Require a geographic threshold. Another possibility would be to retain the statewide popular vote but require a gubernatorial candidate to receive some minimum percentage of the vote in a minimum number of geographic regions. For example, a candidate could be required to receive a statewide plurality and at least 40 percent of the vote in a specified number of Senate districts. That would preserve the basic popular-vote principle while preventing a candidate from winning solely through overwhelming support concentrated in a few metropolitan areas.
Use a two-part electoral formula. Kansas could create a system somewhat analogous to the federal Electoral College: one portion of the electoral vote would be allocated according to population, while another portion would be allocated geographically. That would give population its proper role without allowing population concentration to completely erase geography.
Strengthen the Kansas Senate. There is another, perhaps more constitutionally straightforward, solution. The Kansas Legislature could deliberately preserve the Kansas Senate as the institution in which geographic interests receive particularly strong consideration. The House is designed to be more directly responsive to population. The Senate can serve as the chamber where regional interests receive greater protection. This would be consistent with the broader American constitutional tradition of having two legislative chambers with somewhat different representational purposes.
Rural Representation Should not Mean Rural Domination
There is an important distinction here. For example, someone living in Wallace County should have five times the voting power of someone living in Johnson County. That would be difficult to justify, and would undermine the legitimacy of the system. Nor should rural voters should be able to elect governors whom a majority of Kansans oppose. But a political system should not make it economically rational for candidates to ignore entire regions of the state. If a candidate knows that winning Johnson County, Sedgwick County, Douglas County, Shawnee County and Wyandotte County is the key to winning statewide office, while losing nearly every agricultural county has little consequence, the political incentives are obvious. Candidates will campaign accordingly. Policies will follow. And eventually rural Kansas will discover that its political influence has diminished even though its economic importance remains substantial.
This is not Uniquely a Kansas problem
The same phenomenon is occurring across the country. Rural America is losing population while metropolitan America grows. Political power naturally follows population. But economic importance does not always follow population. A relatively small rural population can be responsible for producing food, energy, minerals, timber and other resources upon which millions of urban residents depend. Rural communities also maintain the land, water infrastructure, transportation networks and natural-resource base upon which the broader economy depends. Yet politically, those communities can become an afterthought. That is not healthy for the country. A republic should encourage political coalitions rather than geographic polarization. If rural voters conclude that statewide elections are structurally unwinnable, they will eventually disengage. If urban voters conclude that rural voters should simply accept whatever policies metropolitan majorities prefer, political resentment will grow. Neither outcome is desirable.
The Answer is not to Abandon Democracy
The answer should be to return to a foundational principle of American constitutionalism: Government should be structured so that competing interests must form coalitions. That is one of the great virtues of our constitutional system. The Senate requires coalitions among states. The Electoral College requires coalitions among states. The House requires coalitions among congressional districts. And federalism itself prevents every political decision from being made by one centralized majority. Those structural protections are not anti-democratic. They are designed to make democracy work in a geographically diverse republic. Kansas should think about doing something similar. Perhaps it is a State Electoral College. Perhaps it is a geographic component to the gubernatorial vote. Perhaps it is strengthening the Senate’s role as the representative of geographic interests. Perhaps it is some entirely different mechanism. But the issue deserves serious constitutional consideration.
Conclusion
The political demographic realities have changed and are changing. Young people leave rural communities. Population concentrates around metropolitan areas. Universities and employers attract people toward cities. And once population becomes concentrated, political power follows. If rural America wants a meaningful political voice fifty years from now, it cannot depend upon the assumption that demographic trends will reverse themselves. It must think institutionally. That means asking whether our political structures adequately protect geographically dispersed communities in an era of increasing urban concentration.
That is not a partisan question. It is a constitutional question. The goal should not be to give rural Kansans more votes than urban Kansans. The goal should be to make sure that a candidate who wants to govern Kansas has to earn the confidence of Kansas – not merely the confidence of the population centers where most of the votes happen to be concentrated. That is a very different proposition.
And perhaps it is time for Kansas, and other rural states, to begin the conversation.
1 578 U.S. 54 (2016).