James Thompson speaks in Wichita, Kan., on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017 during a meeting held by Democrats to decide their candidate for a special election scheduled for April 11 to fill a vacancy for the Kansas 4th congressional district. The seat, held by Republican Mike Pompeo, was vacated when Pompeo was selected by President Donald Trump to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Thompson defeated four others to become the Democratic candidate. (Travis Heying/The Wichita Eagle via AP)

Wichita ? The nation’s first congressional election to fill the seat left vacant by CIA Director Mike Pompeo in Kansas will be both a referendum on the policies of the state’s Republican governor and those of President Donald Trump, Democratic candidate James Thompson said Monday.

His comments came during his first news conference of a congressional race that is playing out amid a backlash against the ultra-conservative agenda championed by Gov. Sam Brownback.

During last year’s elections two dozen of the governor’s allies lost legislative seats. Even some Republicans have concluded that the income tax cuts that Brownback is still touting nationally are responsible for the state’s persistent budget woes.

Thompson portrayed his Republican opponent, state Treasurer Ron Estes, as a supportive part of the Brownback Administration and its policies.

“We have people in our state that are tired of Mr. Brownback’s policies and they don’t want to see another Brownback clone take his policies and nationalize them,” Thompson said.

Representatives with Estes’ campaign and with the treasurer’s office said they would try to reach Estes for comment.

Estes has said in the past that he is pleased with the direction the new president has taken the country, saying people now have the opportunity to preserve the country following a conservative vision.

Ron Estes accepts his party's nomination to run the 4th District congressional seat Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, in Wichita, Kan. Republicans picked Estes on Thursday as their nominee for the south central Kansas congressional seat held for more than two decades by the GOP but vacated recently by Mike Pompeo to become President Donald Trump's CIA director. (Fernando Salazar/The Wichita Eagle via AP)

The April 11 vote is the nation’s first special congressional election since Trump’s win, and Democrats are hoping to channel voter discontent with Brownback into an upset in the heavily Republican district. Trump won 60 percent of the votes cast in the 17-county congressional district.

Republicans have represented the district that encompasses the state’s largest city of Wichita since Todd Tiahrt unseated veteran Democratic Rep. Dan Glickman in 1994. Pompeo won the state’s 4th District seat in 2010, when Tiahrt gave it up to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate.

Thompson called Monday’s news conference to publicly urge a crackdown on human trafficking — an issue he says is consistent with his campaign of fighting for families.

Thompson, a civil rights lawyer, told reporters that social workers, teachers and others need to be given the tools to recognize the problem, and that prosecutors should “stop punishing the victims” and instead go after the johns and the pimps.