Kansas candidates campaign on opposite strategies. Here's what one expert sees.

The weather looks like it won’t be too bad on Tuesday in Kansas. Highs in the low 70s with a possibility of scattered thunderstorms. No snow, no ice. It will be Election Day, and the culmination of intense races for statewide races, especially governor and attorney general.

The governor’s race has set a record for the amount of money raised and spent, with over $30 million spent by the candidates and outside groups on political ads alone, with 65 different ads aired just on television.

In the governor and AG races, the strategies from both sides have been clear. From the Democrats — Gov. Laura Kelly and attorney general candidate Chris Mann — their message is that the election is about Kansas and Kansas issues. They want voters to focus on two Kansas Republicans, former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and former Secretary of State Kris Kobach — who just happens to be Mann’s opponent — as examples of failed leaders from Kansas’ recent past.

They want to be seen as the voice of calm, moderation, and cooperation against the perception of the chaos wrought by those former Republicans that it could happen again.

From the Republicans — gubernatorial candidate Derek Schmidt and Kobach — their messages are that the election is about the national Democrats and their argument of the insidious influence they have on Kelly and Mann. They want voters to focus on Joe Biden in particular and imagine that the Kansas Democrats are but puppets in the radical hands of the president.

The only two independent polls we have in this entire race come from 27 News and Emerson College and show both races to be statistically toss-ups. The most recent, from Tuesday, shows Kelly ahead of Schmidt by three points and Mann ahead of Kobach by one point. But there’s a three-point margin of error, so it’s anybody’s game.

The interesting thing about the governor’s race is Kelly’s remarkable consistency in her approval ratings. While she won her election in 2018 with 48% of the vote, her average approval rating has been at 50% or a little higher every year since 2019, and her average disapproval over those four years is 33%. In short, with these kind of numbers, it’s easy to infer that generally most Kansans like the job she’s doing. Or at the very least, they don’t dislike it.

So, can the Republican strategy of nationalizing the election work against a governor who hasn’t engendered majority antipathy across the state? It sure can.

Firing up the base, or as the late Kansas political scientist Burdett Loomis called it, “A campaign of overwhelming bombardment,” can indeed work. We only have to look to the 2014 governor’s race.

Republican Sam Brownback’s average approval rating in his first term was 39% approval and 50% disapproval. But the Republicans fired up their voters that year, Democrats weren’t very excited about their candidates (their candidate for U.S. Senate wasn’t even a Democrat), and Brownback beat his opponent, Paul Davis, by nearly four points.

In some ways, it was a one-day phenomenon, as Brownback’s second term was worse in terms of a non-adoring public: His average approval from 2015-2017 was 22% to 68% disapproval.

Two competing strategies in 2022, and two possible results, with the ultimate winners determined by what group of voters decide to actually vote.

Just remember folks: No do-overs.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Laura Kelly, Derek Schmidt campaign give different visions to voters