Cheyenne Davis, right, field and political director for the Kansas Democratic Party, tells about two dozen Douglas County Democrats that the party is focused on rebuilding

Lecompton ? A top official in the Kansas Democratic Party told a Douglas County audience Tuesday that she was pleased with the gains the state party made in the 2016 elections, but she said more work needs to be done to build an organization that can compete with Republicans statewide.

“We need to build a bench, really bad,” said Cheyenne Davis, field and political director for the state party organization.

Davis spoke to about two dozen Douglas County Democrats Tuesday evening at Kanwaka Township Hall near Lecompton.

Cheyenne Davis, right, field and political director for the Kansas Democratic Party, tells about two dozen Douglas County Democrats that the party is focused on rebuilding

On a state-level basis, Davis said Kansas Democrats did well in 2016, making a net gain of 12 seats in the Kansas House and one seat in the state Senate. That was among the largest gains Democrats made in any statehouse around the country.

But Kansas Democrats have not won a single statewide or congressional race in the last four election cycles, dating back to 2010 when they were swept in the midterm elections of President Barack Obama’s first term.

Meanwhile, Democrats nationally suffered badly in 2016 by losing the White House and failing to win a majority in either chamber of Congress.

In addition, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Republicans now control state legislatures in 32 states. And 24 of those, including Kansas, also have Republican governors.

Some analysts have said that puts Democrats in the weakest national position they have had since 1928.

Davis, however, said the party’s exclusive focus on state legislative races during the 2016 elections was part of a long-term strategy to build strength at the state level so they can have more say in redrawing congressional district maps after the 2020 census.

“We know that we need a very strong caucus within the Legislature. Otherwise, we can never win elections again if we keep getting gerrymandered out of our districts,” Davis said.

Davis did say, however, that the party is already recruiting congressional candidates for 2018, and she said Democrats will be able to do something they couldn’t do in 2016: run against President Donald Trump.

“I think we’ll have a good chance of putting a referendum on Trump in 2018 by putting some good Democrats out at the federal level,” she said.

That wasn’t possible in 2016, Davis said, because a Republican win in the presidential race in Kansas was a foregone conclusion. She said Democrats focused on identifying Trump supporters who were also willing to support Democrats on lower-ballot races.

“Our candidate was unpopular in Kansas, our presidential candidate. That was just a fact,” she said. “And so we had to completely eliminate national messaging from the conversation. And we did this knowingly and willingly to help our candidates at the lower level.”

Alan Cowles, who lives in west Lawrence, said he was frustrated that the Democratic National Committee hasn’t done more to help congressional candidates in Kansas.

But Davis said the state party hopes that will change under the new leadership of Tom Perez, the former U.S. Labor Secretary who was named chairman of the DNC on Saturday and who has said he wants to adopt a “50-state strategy” to rebuild state party organizations throughout the country.

“Truthfully, we haven’t had a 50-state strategy since Howard Dean,” she said, referring to the one-time presidential candidate who chaired the party from 2005 to 2009. “State Democratic parties are the lifeblood of the DNC, but they forgot about us, and all the focus went to the White House.”