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Trust fall: Trump’s win or loss will further damage our elections • Kansas Reflector

Published

1 year ago

November 1, 2024

Trust fall: Trump’s win or loss will further damage our elections • Kansas Reflector

The Rule said, “Don’t talk about politics at the dinner table.”

It wasn’t polite to mention deficit spending, because, well … The Rule. And not immigration. Or racism. Or abortion. Or inflation.

And according to The Rule, you certainly shouldn’t bring up the candidates. You weren’t to mention how you didn’t trust the Democrat, or how you didn’t agree with the Republican.

The Rule told us this talk was too divisive. Instead, just tell your dinner guests that you voted, because, even if we couldn’t agree on policy or candidates, we agreed to trust the elections.

How old-fashioned.

Today, merely mentioning the election — mail-in ballots, early voting, election fraud, poll workers — is just as likely to kick up a fight as a debate about the choice between Democrat or Republican, red or blue, pro-life or pro-choice.

At its core, the 2024 presidential election next week will shine a spotlight on our confidence in democratic election results. Will we trust the announced winners? A partisan divide on basic election logistics suggests that we could be in for a roiling debate, not just at our national dinner table, but here in Kansas as well.

A report on the political attitudes of Kansans published this week by the Docking Institute at Fort Hays State University surveyed hundreds of voters statewide.

It happily noted, “Respondents had high confidence with the election results in Kansas. About sixty percent (60.5%) of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they were confident that the reported winners of the elections in Kansas are actually the candidates that most Kansas voted for.”

Is 60.5% a number that should make us confident?

The fact that anyone reads this polling result as positive news is itself discouraging. To that same question, 10.4% said they disagree or strongly disagree. The same number said they “don’t know.”

This is not “high confidence” in elections. Those “disagree” and “don’t know” percentages, even if wildly off, represent tens of thousands of Kansans that might believe the wrong candidate — their candidate — unfairly lost.

How have those confidence percentages changed during the past few years? Not much. While it’s positive news that Kansans aren’t doubting their elections more each year, we might also worry that this doubt is becoming part of the political identity of Kansans.

Kansans are worried about problems that either don’t exist or problems so rare that they are difficult to document:

15.3% believe that illegal immigrants were voting in Kansas elections in large numbers.
11.6% believe that voter fraud routinely decides the winners of elections in Kansas.
Sizeable numbers believed ballot drop boxes should be banned (23.5%) and vote by mail should be abolished (23%).

Call it Kansas election skepticism.

The scare-mongering of Kris Kobach might have successfully entrenched this anxiety about elections into Kansans. His deceptive hyperventilation about voter fraud played out in the courts, in his grasps for national office and in his run for governor. His constant squawks about voter fraud and election integrity may have nudged our statewide attitudes toward suspicion, along with Trump’s more recent shoves on the national stage.

How much is this a Kansas belief and how much is this a Republican belief? That’s difficult to tease out from the survey. All we can see is that 34.1% identified as some kind of “conservative,” while 23.5% identified somewhere along the range of “liberal.”

To answer this question, we need to check national partisan attitudes.

In a report issued last month, Gallup surveyed nationally on the issue of “votes cast by people who, by law, are not eligible to vote.” A wide majority of Republicans (74%) identified this as a “major problem,” while only 14% of Democrats saw it that way. Other surveys found similar partisan divides.

According to the Pew Research Center, Democrats (90%) are 33 percentage points more likely to forecast this election as being run and administered very or somewhat well than Republicans (57%). Trump supporters are less trusting than Harris supporters of election basics such as vote counting, poll workers and election officials. The divide on mail-in ballots is the widest: 85% of Harris supporters are confident in them as opposed to 38% of Trump supporters.

An area of skeptical overlap? Only 8% of all respondents to the Pew poll said they are highly confident in the Supreme Court’s neutrality, if it needed to issue an election decision (2% for Harris supporters; 14% for Trump supporters).

That kind of animosity — whether from one political party or both — toward the basic function of voting is an existential threat to democracy. As some of Trump’s advisers whispered to his deaf ear in 2020, it’s vital to American democracy that the loser trusts both the counts and the courts, and steps aside.

Clearly, Trump’s false claims about voting have fueled Republican doubts about elections. Look no further than Kansas Speaks: It didn’t start asking about election confidence until the 2022 fall survey, in the wake of Trump’s fraudulent clinging to office.

The Rule about dinner table politics was a domestic rule about courtesy. Respect the people who sit across the table from you — enough to not clutter the table with politics.

A Trump biographer and the new movie about Trump’s rise detail another version of The Rule. Along with two other tenets, Trump learned this lesson from the ruthless New York lawyer Roy Cohn. This version of The Rule? “Claim victory and never admit defeat.”

Trump’s dogged insistence that he won — that he always wins — is his personal version of what MIT election experts call the “loser’s regret phenomenon.”

Researchers with their Election Data + Science Lab have documented this effect over decades and across countries. When voters watch their preferred candidate lose, they express less confidence in the election process. Logically, there is a “winner’s effect,” calculated by tracking how much more confident people become in elections after their candidate wins.

When combined, these effects can be substantial. Simply put in one of their studies, “Winners are consistently more trusting of the vote count than losers.” In this way, the reaction of Trump and his followers was at once predictable and extreme, as they searched for votes in Georgia, waged losing court battles and ultimately stormed the Capitol.

Four days from the election, we are caught in a dilemma of election confidence. If voters elect Trump as president next week, he will have four more years in power to damage confidence in our elections. During his first term, he used the bully pulpit to cast doubt about voting machines, poll workers and election commissions. We should expect more of the same from a second Trump term. We should expect election confidence to slide, even with the winner’s effect. Republicans might be buoyed, but Democrats will doubt, with everyone soured by Trump’s deep distrust of elections.

Conversely, if Trump loses, he is likely to fight the election results. The Rule of “never admitting defeat” means a wave of loser’s regret, fueled by Trump’s childish insistence that he must win. His supporters are likely to feel that sting and doubt returns in upcoming elections.

Either way, Trump and his enablers have been and likely will continue to be an accelerant of election doubt, fueling unbounded and unfounded skepticism. Four years from now, political scientists likely will still be polling doubting Kansans who will be thinking of Trump’s lies and parroting them around the kitchen table to anyone who will listen — even if it ruins family dinner.

In this way and many others, the bonfires that Trump and his operatives lit within our elections will still be burning, regardless of who wins next week.

Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

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Homegrown Jayhawk stars ready to shine at Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City

Published

7 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Homegrown Jayhawk stars ready to shine at Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City

LAWRENCE, Kan. (KCTV) – As Kansas women’s basketball prepares to enter the postseason at the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City, they’ll be led by two Overland Park natives who have been two of the most electrifying players to watch in the country this year.

Junior guard S’Mya Nichols and freshman forward Jaliya Davis have played integral roles in the recent growth of the program. Both cite the desire to help grow the Jayhawks into something special as reasons for committing there.

“Where we wanted to take Kansas women’s basketball, I wanted to be a part of that growing evolution,” Nichols told KCTV5.

“We [my family] were also really big Jayhawk fans. We came to a lot of games,” Davis said about her childhood.

The two were both 5-star recruits in high school, and their commitments marked historic recruiting victories for the KU women’s basketball program.

First came Nichols in the Class of 2023, picking KU over Tennessee and Oklahoma.

“I genuinely wanted to go to Kansas,” she said.

Then Davis became the highest-rated player to ever commit to KU as part of the Class of 2025.

“When you go back to S’Mya Nichols being a local, Kansas City, Overland Park product, a nationally respected player, Jaliya was really the next one that was very important for the Jayhawks to keep home,” said head coach Brandon Schneider.

Now as a junior, Nichols has established herself as one of the most consistent scorers and physical guards in the nation.

But it’s the Shawnee Mission West’s alum’s leadership that defines her legacy in Lawrence.

“The team leader, the quarterback,” Coach Schneider described Nichols. “I think oftentimes the player that everybody looks up to off the court.”

“I mean it means everything. Knowing that I’m important to the team, and that they see me as that as well,” said Nichols with a smile.

Both Nichols and Davis were recruited by the Jayhawks for years, going all the way back to seventh grade.

“Well, we offered her in middle school,’ Coach Schneider said with a laugh about Davis.

“Oh he put in a lot of work,” laughed Davis. “I mean, obviously, seventh grade, that’s a long time.”

It was that dedication from Coach Schneider that led her to choose the Jayhawks over Texas, South Carolina, Baylor, and Oklahoma – where he dad played ball.

“I think it really was the relationship we had and grew. He was always there, every single one of my games,” Davis said about Schneider.

After just one practice as teammates, Nichols voiced a big belief about Davis into existence – and it’s probably going to come true.

The Jayhawks are the 11-seed in the Big 12 Tournament, and will face 14-seed UCF in the first round on Wednesday at 8:00 p.m.(KCTV5)

“I saw her first practice, and I sent her a text, and I’m like ‘I think you can win Freshman of the Year’, and I still stand by that,”

Davis is averaging 21.0 points per game, and has been named the Big 12 Freshman of the Week for eight weeks in a row. That sets a power conference all-time record.

“I think it’s really cool. I mean obviously it’s a team effort, they’re always looking for me,” Davis said about her historic accomplishment.

“Just a phenomenal stretch of basketball for her, and so well deserving,” said Coach Schneider.

Now these two homegrown stars are at the forefront of a late-season push to earn a bid to the NCAA Tournament. Right now, CBS Sports bracketology has them as a ‘First Four Out’ team.

But a few wins in the Big 12 Tournament could certainly help seal their invite to the big dance.

“Obviously we’re not in the position that we were hoping to be in, but I think we can make the most out of it, and get to where we want to be,” Davis said about the opportunity at hand in the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City.

The Overland Park kids are especially fired up about starting the postseason in their own backyard.

“I have a big support system. So I bet my family will take a big chunk of that area during that tournament,” Davis laughed.

“I remember being younger, and the College Basketball Experience is right next door. So I felt like at one moment that was the big stage, when I got to play my little AAU tournaments in there. And then all of a sudden I’m literally in T-Mobile Center on the actual big stage, so it’s pretty cool,” said Nichols.

The Jayhawks are the 11-seed in the Big 12 Tournament, and will face 14-seed UCF in the first round on Wednesday at 8:00 p.m.

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Why Matthew Driscoll continues to say Kansas State is ‘close’

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Why Matthew Driscoll continues to say Kansas State is ‘close’

MANHATTAN — David Castillo sank his free throw to finish off a three-point play to cut TCU’s lead to two late in the second half. Kansas State had a chance to play spoiler to a team that was on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

For the previous 36 minutes, the Wildcats were more engaged than they had been all season. You wouldn’t have recognized they were just under two weeks removed from their head coach getting fired. The Wildcats were in the middle of a competitive basketball game when there haven’t been many this season.

And then the final four minutes happened, and the Wildcats lost once again.

Kansas State pulled within one score six different times in the second half against the Horned Frogs, only to never take a lead, and then go 4 minutes, 4 seconds without a point after Castillo’s late bucket, leading to a 77-68 loss.

K-State interim coach Matthew Driscoll compared the loss to a broken record, when the Wildcats have been close late, only to fall apart in the end.

“We get there, and then, for whatever reason, we can’t break through,” Driscoll said. “When we got it to a one-point game, I thought that this was when we were going to turn the corner. It just seems like we keep getting close, and we can’t break through that wall.”

Kansas State (11-18, 2-14 Big 12) has been within striking distance in a handful of games this season, only to go on lengthy scoring droughts and come up short in the end.

While there are plenty of games in which the Wildcats were blown out or didn’t show half the effort they showed against the Horned Frogs, there have been enough games that if the Wildcats finished, they wouldn’t be fighting to not finish at the bottom of the Big 12 standings.

K-State’s Feb. 25 loss to Colorado is another example, having two five-plus-minute spurts in which it didn’t score a point. The Wildcats held late leads against West Virginia and Oklahoma State, and in their first game against TCU, only to choke away those leads.

“There’s a lot of frustration,” Khamari McGriff said. “It’s been a fight to continue to focus on the next right thing and let whatever has happened in the past, and just try to get to a point where we can compete for 40 minutes. We gotta look at it with the perspective that we’ve been close a lot of times, and we just gotta figure out how to take that next step.”

Kansas State is running out of opportunities to achieve that “next step.” The Wildcats have a home game on Tuesday, March 3, against a beatable West Virginia team before closing the regular season at Kansas on March 7. After that, it would be surprising if the Wildcats get more than two games at the Big 12 Tournament.

But Driscoll hasn’t seen his team quit, which is almost all he can ask for after what has been a season to forget.

“We just haven’t completed the deal,” Driscoll said.

Wyatt D. Wheeler covers Kansas State athletics for the USA TODAY Network and Topeka Capital-Journal. You can follow him on X at @WyattWheeler_, contact him at 417-371-6987 or email him at wwheeler@usatodayco.com

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Kansas Highway Patrol reports five-vehicle crash in Johnson Co. Friday

Published

2 days ago

February 28, 2026

Press Room

Kansas Highway Patrol reports five-vehicle crash in Johnson Co. Friday

JOHNSON COUNTY, Kan. (WIBW) – Multiple people were involved in a five-vehicle crash Friday in Johnson County.

According to the Kansas Highway Patrol Crash Log, the crash occurred around 4:55 p.m. on Interstate 35.

Five vehicles: a 2021 Toyota Tacoma, a 2010 Toyota Sienna, a 2014 Honda Pilot, a 2017 Chevrolet Malibu, and a 2018 Ford Mustang, were all traveling northbound on the I-35 long ramp to 75th Street.

The 2021 Toyota Tacoma exited the roadway to the right and struck the rear of the 2010 Toyota Sienna.

The 2021 Toyota Tacoma then continued northbound and struck the 2024 Honda Pilot.

The Honda Pilot was pushed and struck the rear of the 2017 Chevrolet Malibu, which then lost control and struck the 2018 Ford Mustang. The Chevrolet Malibu then struck the barrier wall.

There were no serious injuries reported in the incident.

The driver of the Toyota Tacoma, a 28-year-old male of Kansas City, Kan., was taken to a hospital with a possible injury. He was wearing a safety restraint.

The Toyota Sienna driver, a 23-year-old female, of Merriam, Kan., had no apparent injuries and was wearing a safety restraint.

The Honda Pilot driver, a 75-year-old male of Lenexa, Kan., had no apparent injuries and was wearing a safety restraint.

The driver of the Chevrolet Malibu, a 31-year-old female of Kansas City, Kan., had no apparent injuries and was wearing a safety restraint.

The 2018 Ford Mustang held two occupants. The driver, a 19-year-old male of Garden Plain, Kan., had no apparent injuries and was wearing a safety restraint.

The other occupant in the vehicle was an 18-year-old female of Goddard, Kan. She did not have any apparent injuries and was wearing a safety restraint.

View the full Kansas Highway Patrol Crash log on this incident here.

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