In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the Kansas abortion amendment vote, KCUR detailed how Rep. Sharice Davids has a “potent advantage” over her anti-choice Republican challenger, Amanda Adkins. 

KCUR pointed out how most Americans disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to strip away federal protection of abortion, and that reproductive rights will be an important factor when they vote in November. In the Third District, voters overwhelmingly defeated the anti-abortion amendment—which Adkins “100 percent” supported. 

While Rep. Davids has long advocated to keep politicians out of Kansans’ health care decisions, Adkins’ record shows she is an anti-abortion extremist with a lengthy history of working to strip away reproductive rights—a position that puts her at odds with Third District voters. 

Read more from KCUR: 

​​Post-Roe urgency throws a lifeline to Kansas Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids in redrawn 3rd District

“The Kansas 3rd District race between Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids and Republican Amanda Adkins is a rematch from 2020.

The newly drawn district, with the addition of rural counties and the subtraction of half of urban Wyandotte County, leans more Republican than it did before. But Davids has a potent advantage that she didn’t have last time.

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade has reshaped the political landscape, and nowhere more so than in Kansas. Davids is running hard on abortion rights, an issue that Kansas Republicans have used to pummel Kansas Democrats for decades.

[…]

It would be hard to overstate the impact of the political upheaval in Kansas. The landslide vote on Aug. 2 defeating a proposed constitutional amendment that would have ended protection for abortion rights in the state was a major upset, bringing out a record number of voters to the polls.

A subsequent forced recount funded by supporters of the amendment only confirmed the breadth of the victory for abortion rights advocates like Davids.

[…]

Davids has tried to harness that anger. Her campaign has held a news conference and produced ads reminding voters that Adkins was on the losing side of the abortion amendment vote.

Davids noted that Adkins was campaign manager for former governor and U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, a staunch opponent of abortion rights, and that Adkins has said she believes life begins at conception.

[…]”

Elsewhere in the District, voters are picking up on Adkins’ long record as a pro-life extremist:

“WHO’S EXTREME? 

Amanda Adkins lost to Rep. Sharice Davids two years ago, but she again seeks to represent us in Congress. In her Aug. 25 guest commentary in The Star, she attempts to hide how extreme she is. (9A, ‘Decisions about abortion should be made in Kansas, not in DC’) 

She says she opposes “government overreach in our lives.” Does she really? She may claim she would oppose a federal ban on abortion, but she wants that power to go, as she puts it, to ‘we the people.’ That is, she wants the government of Kansas to force pregnant women against their will to carry their pregnancies to term. Tell me why that isn’t ‘overreach.’ 

‘We the people’ in Kansas recently settled that issue. Government needs to stay out of women’s reproductive lives, we said.

Let’s leave the decision of what to do with a woman’s body where it really belongs: to the woman, not to the government.”

Letter to the Editor by Max J. Skidmore in the Kansas City Star