TOPEKA ? Kansas’ redistricting experience shows that even when Republicans dominate a state, the outcome is not always preordained.

Republican bickering between tea party conservatives and moderates landed the decision with federal judges, who approved a Kansas election map that gives Democrats at least a shot at breaking the GOP stranglehold on the state’s four U.S. congressional seats.

Republicans hold a nearly 20-percentage point advantage among registered voters in Kansas. There never was a chance that redistricting would make any of districts Democratic-leaning.

But the map drawn by judges assigned the city of Lawrence, home of the University of Kansas and often seen as the state’s most liberal community, to the district of Republican three-term Rep. Lynn Jenkins.

Jenkins now faces a spirited challenge from Democratic challenger Margie Wakefield, a Lawrence attorney, and Democrats believe redistricting helped her significantly. Based on voter registration figures, Jenkins initially fared the worst among the four members of Congress immediately after redistricting. Previously, Lawrence was split between two districts.

Wakefield sees the post-redistricting lines as “reasonable and commonsense,” adding, “It’s much better.”

But more recent trends in voter registration demonstrate the advantages Republicans enjoy in Kansas. GOP registration percentages in the 2nd District are higher now than in mid-2012 when the map was released, and Jenkins believes her chances for re-election are strong because voters remain frustrated with Democratic President Barack Obama.

“I’m happy with my new district — I believe it’s a good fit,” she said. “By and large, it’s a fairly rural and conservative district.”

In the 2010 elections, Republican swept all statewide and congressional races on the ballot for the first time since 1964 and bulked up their legislative majorities. But the GOP supermajority in the state Senate remained divided between moderates and conservatives, preventing the agreement on redistricting issues that marked other Republican-controlled states.

Near the end of the Legislature’s futile 2012 debate on redistricting, lawmakers were considering a proposal to redraw the lines so that the massive Republican-Democratic registration gap in the 1st District of western and central Kansas would get smaller, though it would remain huge. Jenkins would have benefited, seeing her GOP registration advantage jump a little, from less than 13 percentage points to almost 15.

Instead, the judges drew lines that narrowed the GOP-Democratic registration gap to less than 10 percentage points by uniting Lawrence in the 2nd District. It had been split among the 2nd and 3rd District centered on the Kansas City area, and the change helped 3rd District Rep. Kevin Yoder by a few percentage points.