Democratic gubernatorial candidate Paul Davis gives his concession speech after the race was called for Gov. Sam Brownback during his watch party on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2014 at Abe & Jake's Landing in Lawrence.

Paul Davis, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Kansas governor last year, said Saturday that he only has a few regrets about how his 2014 campaign was run, but he said Democrats have reason to feel optimistic about the 2016 races.

Speaking to a regular monthly gathering of the Douglas County Democratic Party, Davis conceded he did not reach out enough to Latino voters, especially those in communities like Dodge City, Liberal and Garden City.

“I didn’t spend as much time in southwest Kansas as I wanted to,” Davis said.

Former Democratic Rep. Paul Davis tells the party faithful in Lawrence Saturday that Democrats have reason to be optimistic about the 2016 elections.

Davis’ speech was the latest in what has become a long line of post-election analyses as Kansas Democrats try to figure out what went wrong for them in 2014 and how they hope to turn things around as the 2016 races approach.

Much has been made about the Democrats’ lack of outreach to the Latino community in 2014.

Two years earlier, according to national exit polls, Latinos voted for President Barack Obama 71 percent to 27 percent over Republican Mitt Romney.

But Kansas Democratic Party officials said after the 2014 races they did not invest many resources into trying to register Latino voters, nor in reaching out through Spanish-language campaign literature, assuming that the state’s new photo ID and proof of citizenship voting laws would reduce the effectiveness of those efforts.

The result, according to 2014 exit polls in Kansas, was that Latino voters split almost evenly, with 47 percent supporting Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and 46 percent voting for Davis.

Davis also acknowledged the influence of national political groups in the 2014 race.

“One thing I didn’t account for (in planning for the race) was the money that would come in from national governors associations,” he said. “The Democratic Governors Association was as helpful as they could be.”

But he said he did not anticipate that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who chaired the Republicans Governors Association, would use it as a “launching pad” for his presidential campaign and would out-raise the Democrats’ organization by a 6-to-1 margin.

“That made a $5 million difference,” he said.

Davis said the dynamics of the U.S. Senate race between Republican incumbent Pat Roberts and independent challenger Greg Orman also played a role in his race.

“There is no apparatus behind an independent that’s going to turn out voters,” he said. “Democrats weren’t sending truckloads of money in the way Republicans did for Pat Roberts.”

Looking ahead to the 2016 races, Davis said he believes Kansas Democrats have reason for optimism. But his optimism was not based on the idea that Kansas voters are starting to lean toward Democrats, but rather his faith that eventually, voters will lean away from Brownback and the GOP leadership in the Legislature.

“Legislative leadership and our governor are out of touch with what people want to see from state government,” Davis said.

During a question-and-answer session after his remarks, Davis was asked how things would look, one year into a Davis administration, if he had won the election.

“I would have brought much higher-caliber people to cabinet and key positions,” Davis said.

“One of the things (former Democratic Gov.) Kathleen Sebelius did was recruit very talented people,” he said. “Sam Brownback has not done that. I don’t think we would have had the kind of session we had (in 2014). We would have brought a different coalition to put together a budget package that was going to work.”