Cottonwood Falls Democrat launches Senate campaign
Staff writer
For the second meeting in a row, Marion County Democrats flexed their political muscle by drawing in a speaker in demand across the state.
Last month, 60 people gathered to listen to gubernatorial candidate Cindy Holscher.
Saturday, 35 were in attendance as Cottonwood Falls native Christy Davis spoke about the launch of her U.S. Senate campaign against incumbent Roger Marshall — “tyrant loyalist Roger Marshall,” as county party chairman David Yoder termed him.
Davis ran for a congressional seat in Kansas’s 1st District in 2020. She lost the Democratic primary to Kali Barnett of Garden City.
After working in historical preservation with the Kansas Historical Society, Davis took a job in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Biden administration.
“I got fired by millions of people in January,” she joked.
Now, she is setting her sights higher by launching a long-shot run for Senate.
Davis criticized Marshall for living in Florida.
The senator purports to live in a 1,120-square-foot cabin in St. John, but, as the Kansas Reflector and others have noted, makes frequent visits to a $1.2 million house he owns in the Sunshine State.
Davis expressed many qualms with the federal government, particularly cuts to the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Education.
She said the Trump administration “clawed back” money the Peabody-Burns school district had received to pay nurse April Wedel, a claim Peabody-Burns Superintendent Antoinette Root later confirmed.
“These aren’t just extra things for bells and whistles,” Davis said. “These are basic things that we all took for granted when we were in public school.”
Root confirmed the money was revoked in March. Afterward, the school tapped into its general fund to pay Wedel.
Wedel remains employed at the school.
“It hurts all kids, but it’s one of those things that happens, so you just deal with it,” Root said.
Davis criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement in speaking about the case of Rosmery Alvarado, a Pittsburg resident who was detained and eventually deported by ICE after arriving at an interview she had been told would begin her green card process.
ICE policies are motivated by “racism and Christian nationalism,” Davis said.
Saturday’s crowd sat around a large worktop made from seven folding tables pushed together.
People drank coffee from ceramic mugs and munched on cookies and grapes.
A few audience members wore blue shirts featuring yellow sunflowers and the motto “Real Kansans.”
One woman’s shirt read “I Stand With Park Rangers.”
Another bore the caption, “Kansas: More Liberal Than You Think.”
Davis’ path to office will depend on Kansas Republicans souring on Marshall and President Donald Trump.
A January survey by Morning Consult put Marshall’s approval rating at 40% and disapproval rating at 37%.
Since then, he has faced criticism after a disastrous town hall in Oakley.
Marshall walked out of the contentious meeting, echoed Trump in claiming that the Oakley audience consisted of paid agitators, then retracted those comments.
Davis said Kansans were souring on Trump because of the cuts his cabinet is making to rural development programs and health care.
“I’ll have people come up to me after meetings and apologize for being Republicans,” she said.
Nonetheless, any Democrat running for office will face an uphill battle in Kansas.
The state’s last Democrat senator, George McGill, left office in 1939.
Davis acknowledged this, speaking about the values she inherited from her Republican grandparents and asking the audience to raise their hands if their relatives were Republicans. (Everyone did.)
“Even if you change minds, can you change votes?” she said.
But Davis remains determined to run as a Democrat.
Asked whether she would consider an independent bid — a strategy that nearly worked for Nebraska’s Dan Osborn in a 2024 Senate race — she shook her head.
“A lot of people have asked that question,” she said. “My entire life I’ve been a Democrat, and I think it would be disingenuous for me to do that.”