Kansas stands at a crossroads of great difficulty and great opportunity for change. Though our state appears divided—Republicans hold a legislative supermajority while Democrats hold the Governor’s office—the underlying balance of power places Kansas firmly within the New Confederate stronghold of the Midwest.

From the Governor’s office to the state legislature, Democratic and moderate power is easily lost. That vulnerability is increasingly visible in Salina, one of our target cities and an example of the political conditions in small cities in Kansas. A central driver of this shift is the Granny Brigade, a local far-right political organization with deep ties to state Republican leadership. The group maintains a constant public presence, hosting candidate forums that open with a prayer delivered by a local pastor, who then remains at the microphone to moderate the event. These forums fuse religious authority with political messaging, creating a space where Christian nationalism is treated as the default civic frame and far-right candidates are elevated as its moral heirs.

This strategy has had a significant impact on recent school board contests in the area. Like other Kansas cities, Salina school board races have been targeted by conservative candidates running on “parental rights,” curriculum control, anti-trans policies, and broader culture-war themes. Far-right activists have attempted to replicate statewide tactics: mobilizing anger over pandemic school disruptions, pushing misleading narratives about curriculum, and stoking fears around LGBTQ inclusion. Groups like the Granny Brigade amplify these efforts by providing a ready-made platform, regular public events, and a consistent pipeline of misinformation and outrage that shapes the political climate well before ballots are cast.

These coordinated attempts to steer school governance reveal how quickly public institutions can shift when inadequate countervailing force is present. Even in a mid-sized city with strong civic roots, the absence of year-round progressive organizing leaves schools — and the larger political terrain—open to capture by small but highly motivated far-right networks. Salina demonstrates the necessity of building Kansas For All chapters capable of contesting these narratives, supporting community leaders, and offering an organized alternative to the far-right’s faith-framed political apparatus.

Meanwhile, the far-right political apparatus, including Americans for Prosperity, the Catholic/Evangelical coalition, and radicalized right-wing leaders like Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, is backed by billionaires. It is aggressively advancing an agenda that consolidates power, undermines democratic institutions, and threatens the safety and dignity of working Kansans.

Yet beneath this surface, Kansas is also home to a volatile, movable, multi-racial working-class electorate. In 2022, voters shocked the nation by rejecting a proposed abortion ban by 18 points. In multiple cities won by Trump in 2020, including our target cities Emporia, Manhattan, and Salina, voters chose abortion rights. The victory proved that Kansans—across race, religion, geography, and party—will mobilize around fairness, autonomy, and democratic rights. However, as in Missouri, Arizona, and other states, the same electorate that rejected abortion bans also solidified a Republican supermajority in the Kansas Legislature in 2022 and 2024. Resolving that contradiction requires organizing the enormous base of voters revealed in August 2022 who are hungry for a political home. 

The next three years will determine whether Kansas becomes a permanently entrenched authoritarian stronghold or contested terrain where working people can move our state toward a multi-racial democracy. We need an institution that transforms like-minded Kansans from passive observers into change-makers, and that never stops its work of building progressive power. We need to unite poor and working-class people on local social and economic justice issues, to build a mandate for progressive change from the ground up, and to ensure our elected leaders reflect our state’s true diversity.