Democratic operatives in Kansas are touting new polling numbers this week that show most Kansans are more moderate than Gov. Sam Brownback and the Republican-led Legislature on issues such as taxes, school funding, environmental and economic policies.

But even the people who commissioned the poll concede that Democrats have an uphill battle in convincing voters to trust them to govern on those issues.

“If Democrats want to be taken seriously, they’ve got to do something on these issues,” said Chris Reeves, a partner in the Democratic consulting firm Smoky Hills Strategies.

The poll was released just days before the Kansas Democratic Party’s midyear “DemoFest” convention in Wichita.

It also comes at a time when there is internal wrangling within the party over whether it should try to “re-brand” itself going into the 2016 elections, and whether Democrats should offer more concrete proposals on policy issues rather than simply criticizing Brownback and the Republicans over theirs.

The survey of 1,217 likely voters was conducted Aug. 5-6 by Public Policy Polling, a firm based in North Carolina that polls for Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percent.

Among its findings:

• 76 percent of those responding said the state’s sales tax rate is now too high after Kansas lawmakers raised it this year to 6.5 percent.

• 72 percent believe business owners should have to pay Kansas personal income taxes like everyone else. (They were exempted in the tax cuts Brownback pushed through in 2012.)

• 62 percent think Kansas doesn’t spend enough money on public education.

• 59 percent say they want Kansas to expand its Medicaid program, as allowed under the federal Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare.”

• 57 percent say the state minimum wage should be raised to either $10 or $15 an hour.

• 43 percent want the state to re-enact the renewable portfolio standards on electric utilities, which Republicans repealed this year; and 27 percent think those standards should be stricter, requiring power companies to produce 30 percent of their power from renewable sources instead of the 20 percent required under the now-repealed law.

Patrick Miller, a political science professor at Kansas University, said those numbers are consistent with another poll this spring conducted by Fort Hays State University. But he said he’s not surprised that elected officials in Kansas tend to enact more conservative policies.

“These attitudes also reflect generally the opinions Kansans expressed in a number of polls throughout 2013 and 2014,” Miller said. “But, like in many states, there is a larger incentive for politicians to be responsive to what their primary voters want than what the public at large thinks.”

Kansas GOP Chairman Kelly Arnold said he wasn’t concerned about the polling numbers, and he doesn’t believe they provide any useful information heading into the 2016 elections.

“If Kansas Democrats want to run on raising taxes to expand Obamacare, be my guest,” he said.

Re-branding Democrats

Following three consecutive “clean-sweep” victories at the polls by Kansas Republicans, a division has opened up within Democratic ranks over how to appeal to a broader segment of voters.

That “schism,” as Reeves has called it, was on full display at the party’s last Washington Days convention in Topeka, where western Kansas Democrats like former House Minority Leader Dennis McKinney openly criticized party leaders for focusing almost exclusively on urban voters while ignoring places like southeast Kansas, which was once a Democratic stronghold.

McKinney said that attitude was illustrated when Dakota Loomis, the party’s former communications director, posted an online comment about “craphole small towns” in southeast Kansas.

More recently, the party’s new chairman, Larry Meeker, has been actively trying to re-brand the party, but those efforts appear to be ruffling even more feathers.

Meeker was quoted this week in The Pitch, a Kansas City-based alternative newspaper, as saying he wanted to change the party’s name to “Red State Democrats,” dropping the word “Kansas,” while portraying themselves as fiscal conservatives.

In a Wichita Eagle article Wednesday, Meeker walked back from that statement, saying he was misinterpreted. But he went on to say that Democrats need to acknowledge that Kansas is a Republican state. And he tried to distance the state party from the national party by saying the typical Kansas Democrat would be considered a moderate Republican in states like California and Massachusetts.

Whether that comparison is accurate or not, Reeves said it did not sit well with the party’s financial donor base. And it also helped expose another rift within the party over efforts, both in election campaigns and in the Legislature, to form coalitions with moderate Republicans rather than pushing hard for a Democratic agenda.

Those are issues likely to be discussed, although more likely in private conversations than in public speeches, when the party gathers this weekend in Wichita.