Democrats tout poll showing Clinton up in 3rd District; Signs Yoder may be vulnerable

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released polling results Tuesday showing Democrat Hillary Clinton leading Republican Donald Trump by double digits in the 3rd Congressional District of Kansas, and that Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder is locked in a surprisingly close race with Democrat Jay Sidie.

The poll was conducted Oct. 5-8, so most of the responses were recorded before release of a recording of Trump making lewd comments about women during a 2005 interview. The telephone survey of 456 likely voters was conducted for the DCCC and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.

It showed Clinton leading Trump, 52-42 percent, and Yoder leading by only 5 percentage points, 50-45 percent, over Sidie.

It also showed that Gov. Sam Brownback’s low approval rating may be dragging down GOP candidates further down the ballot. Within the 3rd District, which includes Johnson, Wyandotte and a small portion of Miami counties, the poll showed Brownback with only a 19 percent approval rating in the district.

Kansas political experts said the idea that Clinton is leading in the 3rd District fits a pattern that has been seen elsewhere in the country where highly educated, upper-income suburban white voters — the dominant demographic in Johnson County — have largely rejected Trump and are gravitating to Clinton.

“Clinton is outperforming normal Democratic numbers among high education and high income white voters, and has been winning them in many national polls,” said University of Kansas political science professor Patrick Miller. “That never happens for a Democrat, so that alone is a shocking development this year. But Trump is outperforming typical Republican numbers with lower education and lower income whites — the ‘white working class.'”

Normally, he said, such trends would cancel each other out. But within certain congressional districts, even those that went Republican in the last two election cycles like the Kansas 3rd, Miller said Clinton has been pulling ahead.

Emporia State University political scientist Michael Smith agreed with that assessment.

“Intuitively, I do agree that the 3rd District is not Trump country,” he said. “Johnson County doesn’t feature the working-class, white population that is associated with Trump’s base, except perhaps in pockets. Wyandotte County is Democratic but suffers from low voter turnout. Northern Miami County might actually be a bit more Trump-ish.”

The poll offered a couple of different looks at the 3rd District congressional race. On one hand, when respondents were asked a generic partisan question, where the candidates’ names are not mentioned, it showed a Democrat beating a Republican, 49-44 percent.

But when the candidates’ names are mentioned, it showed Yoder up by 5 points in a two-way trial heat, and by 4 points in a three-way match-up that includes Libertarian candidate Steve Hohe.

“To put it bluntly: Congressman Yoder is not well liked by his constituents and a solid majority of voters believe that he will put his political party and special interests ahead of Kansans,” DCCC spokesman Tyler Law said in a statement. “Yoder’s shameful embrace of Donald Trump and Governor Brownback has made his already shaky case for re-election even less credible. There’s no doubt that this is going to be a close race.”

Republicans, however, did not appear nervous about the poll.

“We’ve heard this tale before,” said Yoder’s campaign spokesman, C.J. Grover.

In 2014, Grover noted, when Brownback and U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts were seen as on the ropes, political handicapper Larry Sabato downgraded both the 3rd District and Rep. Lynn Jenkins’ 2nd District to “likely Republican,” arguing there was a chance that anti-incumbent fever could trickle down to the congressional races.

Both Yoder and Jenkins won those races by margins of about 20 percentage points.

Also, the poll was released the same day that the Yoder campaign began airing a negative TV ad against Sidie, a financial adviser who, according to state records, has never been registered with the Kansas securities commissioner.

Officials in the office of Securities Commissioner Josh Ney confirmed that neither Sidie nor his firm, Counterpunch Financial, is registered in Kansas, which is required for most individuals and companies that offer financial advice to the general public.

But Sidie reportedly is citing an exemption to that requirement, which says registration is not required if the individual or firm has fewer than 15 clients and does not “not hold itself out generally to the public as an investment adviser.”