What on earth happened at your local polling station this week?

A huge yes.

On keeping the busses rolling, but an online sales tax in Jackson County goes down in flames.

What message are voters sending?

And to John Sherman be worried as he teased up a stadium vote next year?

Plus, massive wins for Democrats in so-called nonpartisan elections.

On the Kansas side, has Johnson County finally flipped from red to blue?

Those stories and the rest of the week's news straight ahead.

Week in review is made possible through the generous support of AARP, Kansas City, RSM.

Dave and Jamie Cummings.

Bob and Marlese Gourley The Courtney S Turner Charitable Trust.

John H Mize and Bank of America.

And a co trustees.

The restaurant at 1900.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hello and welcome.

I'm Nick Haines.

Are you ready to dissect the week's top local news stories tracking our most impactful, confusing and befuddling local headlines, our former Kansas City star reporter and editorial writer Dave Helling.

Also on the Week in Review Bus this week from Talk Radio 95.7 FM, KCMO Pete Mundo from the Shawnee Mission Post, Kyle Palmer, and from the Kansas City PBS newsroom Flatland KC Mary Sanchez.

Now, many of us headed to the polls this week to vote in local elections on both sides of state line.

There were puzzling results and some that have left us scratching our heads.

Let's start in Kansas, where in what was supposed to be a nonpartisan election, pretty much every candidate endorsed by the Johnson County Democratic Party won big from school board races, city council right down to members of the water District board and trustee races for Johnson County Community College.

Remember, this is a county in which Republicans have traditionally dominated so why was it Democrats breaking open the champagne on Tuesday night and Republicans drowning their sorrows, Pete?

Well, it's always a few reasons.

It's never as black and white as want to make it out to be.

But the trend line has been a such based on what we've seen in recent election cycles and also ground game matters, money matters and candidate quality matters and who's in charge of these elections matter in terms of who your county chair is, who that those candidates are.

So it's all those things wrapped into one, and it turned into a very, very good night for Johnson County Democrats.

But we always should be mindful of saying beware of the single explanation to understand human behavior.

Kyle But can you help us understand how that happened?

Well, as Pete said, I mean, this is a trend that's been going on in Johnson County for several years now, dating back to when Laura Kelly won the county in 2018.

Joe Biden took it for Democrats in 2020 for the first time in living memory.

So this shouldn't necessarily been a surprise, though.

I think we saw in the weeks leading up to it both and people we were talking to as well as just on the ground information that, yeah, Democrats were more organized, more well-funded, and seemed to want these elections a little bit more, again, emphasizing that these were nominally nonpartisan contests.

But but both parties kind of dived in and had their own lists and were very clearly trying to make it as partizan as possible.

I remember, Dave, that used to be a time when Democrats would hide their affiliation on their mailers, even when they come to your door, because they knew they were going to get nowhere.

In Johnson County if you saw a Democrat next to their name.

Is it time now for Republicans to ditch their party label on those campaign mailers?

Because is that now a liability from Evan Jones County?

If you look at the numbers, the number of registered Republicans in Johnson County is still higher than registered Democrats, although if you put Democrats and independents together, they out number, if you will, Republicans.

So the trend is very clear and Johns County weather and in most suburban suburbs, I must say, not just Johnson County, but in suburbs across the country.

Now, whether it's permanent or just cyclical isn't clear.

My friend Kevin Yoder used to tell me, no, this just happens every 25 years ago.

There's a bit of a flip, so we'll see.

Johnson County has always moderate Republicans for years and years and years, and I think a lot of the people who live there, they might be fiscally conservative and therefore kind of maybe swing on a financial thought base towards Republican leadership, but then they're socially more open and more diverse.

Johnson County is increasingly diverse.

One in five people now identify as being a person of color.

In Johnson County, one in 11 are foreign born in Johnson County.

So that that has changed.

But I want to go back to Pete's point about, you know, there's a lot of things that go into it.

It's never as clear cut as you might think.

Let's look at these two races in the areas most closely watched school board race in Blue Valley.

Every candidate demanding change who expressed concern about how perhaps race and gender issues were being injected into the classroom lost.

They failed to pick up one seat.

But contrast that to what happened in Prairie Village, where council candidates upset over the loosening of housing rules.

The building of more and more apartments were big victors on election night, picking up at least four seats and possibly a fifth, which, as we record, this program, is still too close to call.

Is there a lesson here that, you know, perhaps housing, creating divides on housing is still a campaign winner potentially?

I would hesitate to draw any major electoral partizan conclusions about privilege.

It was a pretty idiosyncratic race, though.

I will say the lesson maybe for the city itself and some city officials is it does show the limits of at least rhetorical progressivism in a place like Prairie Village.

Of course, that city has been branded as a little bit more liberal in the recent years.

And it's okay to denounce people like Jesse Nichols.

It's okay to march in and for an end to police brutality.

It's okay to fly the Pride flag, but when it comes to your property, when it comes to your home values.

Except one, except the one that affects you directly, I think these election.

Results showed maybe the limits of that and maybe that the residents weren't ready for that conversation.

How do you explain that contrast that happened there?

People?

I think it's fascinating.

Privilege, hypocritical liberalism is alive and well.

So that's a good thing.

That was on full display.

But on a serious note, it was very it's a it's a very niche bipartisan issue.

Your home is your greatest asset for most Americans.

And that crossed party lines.

And to the credit of those running and privilege, they were running as outsiders.

They were called every name in the book, but they stuck to their issues.

Talk about candidate quality.

You had very high candidate quality.

And then to tie it back to Blue Valley two years ago, Blue Valley had some wins on some of the issues tied to COVID.

So now the other side came out.

They were much more motivated this time around after the wins two years ago, that they they didn't like.

And you saw the other way, you know, have a much better night on Tuesday.

So that's kind of what you saw in those two places.

I'm going to return to Kansas in just a moment as we look at the longer term impact of what this could mean.

But let's move quickly to Missouri, where voters were mainly voting on ballot questions.

In Clay County, voters approved a fee to fund 911 response.

In Kansas City, voters overwhelmingly said yes to keeping the busses rolling, but no love for an online tax going down in flames in Jackson County.

Why Dave?

Well, anti-tax sentiment in eastern Jackson County is legendary, always has been.

And that may have played a bit of a role.

There was controversy at the courthouse over this.

Frank White, the county executive, did not endorse and in fact, opposed the measure.

So there was some confusion on that score, how the money would be spent.

And there's just general anti-government sentiment in parts of Jackson County.

That's an important thing to keep out.

I also noticed that even Frank White's wife just before Election Day was going on social media telling people to vote no because we don't know where the money is going to go.

There's too much money.

Don't do it.

That what she was interesting because she even said as a preface that I'm rarely on social media.

So who did she think she was going to impact?

She was probably just channeling Frank, and that was part of it just the confusion of it.

And people just when they're confused, they're not going to vote yes on an extra tax.

One thing is the busses was a renewal, so you're not necessarily paying more that you could pay less if it wasn't happening.

This was going to be an increase and it also didn't.

He mentioned online tax.

This was a use tax.

The language was a little confusing.

It was eight lines, no periods in the question.

And they kind of talked about infrastructure and the homeless and the people who could be homeless.

And a lot of people in Jackson County are like, jeez, with these assessments, we could all be homeless pretty soon.

So I think there was a lot of frustration.

I'd point Lucas on my show Thursday.

He admitted that anti-tax sentiment in the wake of the assessments this summer certainly probably drove a lot of that outcome and understandably, people are not having it.

So Jackson County's got to figure that out.

But this is actually exactly the same voter base that will be deciding the future of a royal stadium potentially next year.

Should this be a worry for John Sherman?

Should he be in panic mode this morning?

Only if he puts himself on the ballot away from the Chiefs.

If he ties himself to the chiefs with a 3% extension, he's probably safe this time to give the chiefs whatever.

If he goes out on his own and Clay or Jackson, he may have some trouble.

Lots of stories this week about what the implications of that is to a potential Royals stadium vote.

Should we be reading that much into voters in Jackson?

Let's say no to a use tax.

One of the things we always learn because that voters are extraordinarily smart.

They do.

They are able in Kansas and Missouri and most places to sort out what ballot measures and candidates are really about.

I'm always amazed by that.

In this case, Eastern Jackson County is a problem for the royals, not just because of this vote, but because they don't want the stadium to move downtown.

They prefer it at the Truman Sports complex, where it's easier to get to if you're in lone Jack or independents or at least some or some of the grand view other communities in eastern Jackson County.

So that's you know, I'm sure that one of the reasons for the delay, which I continue to believe will extend into 2024, is the Royals own polling is showing them that they're in trouble, even with the chiefs on the ballot.

If the chiefs are on the ballot, then you have to split the money and it doesn't really provide as much cash.

And so it's very, very complex.

And I think they're still reading the tea leaves over at Kauffman Spencer lately.

I mean, every good political consultant will tell you, read your tea leaves, listen to where the voters are and move or don't move accordingly.

And if anything, the issue that should really be in his head is how people reacted around the airport initially.

Initially, the polling around that they pulled back because it was so negative.

This we love our little terminal.

The way it works now, everyone sees what they've built and it's shifted a little bit.

But there was a hold on that for very good reasons.

Yeah.

Can I just say quickly, the airport, of course, involved no general tax increase.

The bus tax which passed in Kansas City, no tax increase in their kids.

You point out the stadium measure would be a no tax increase proposal too.

So people may be able to see that in a way that they would not see.

Other thing the other thing that John Sherman can do, if he's so concerned about that Jackson County vote on that online sales tax, Pete, is to move to the stadium, to Clay County and to that North Kansas City site.

But why is that being so quiet?

We haven't heard anything about that for quite some time now.

Are they given up on that?

Well, from what I can gather and what I've heard, there's a big gap between what the royals want in sales tax dollars and what the county is willing to give them.

I've heard the royals went up to a penny in sales tax.

That's a huge number.

Once again, it's currently three days between two teams in Jackson and County.

Commissioners are only interested in maybe putting a half cent on the ballot.

So that's it.

That's an enormous gap between those two sides.

And the royals may say to go to clay, break the lease, go to all the legal processes around that, it may not be worth it.

What about the implications of Tuesday's election on the Kansas side?

Every election cycle there are concerns that Democratic Congresswoman Sharice Davids will be picked off.

Was Davids one of the big winners Tuesday night?

That in spite of having three Republicans already running against her, she doesn't have much to worry about now next year.

Kyle Well, I mean, I think again, considering how she performed last year in a redrawn district that was putatively more red, she did even better than she did in 2020 in terms of the actual results.

So I do I do think Sharice Davids probably feels pretty comfortable right now, especially after the larger national results on Tuesday.

We should also point out also in addition to Sharice Davids, Laura Kelly won Johnson County last time around by more than 20 points a game.

When we think about Kansas being a Republican state, is it time to change the color of Johnson County and say it's no longer a red county?

It is a blue one.

I think it's a blue county.

I mean, I don't know how you can look at the last story, but watch strategy change.

And Republicans being employing now, do you think?

Well, here's the thing.

I think that top of the ticket in 24 is going to play a big role in this.

If you do have Donald Trump at the top of the ticket, melody and Theresa's role in the reelection, I just think that especially next year, there's not much any third district candidate in Kansas is going to do that's going to change it when the top of the ticket is expected to be what we think it's going to be.

I just think that that's going to be an issue for many suburban districts, as Dave talked about earlier.

Were there any lessons for us here in the results of other elections this week across the country?

In Ohio, a state won by Donald Trump in 2020, voters chose to enshrine the right to an abortion in its state constitution.

Is there a lesson here for Republican leaders in Missouri, Dave Helling, as the effort continues to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot next year, giving Missourians the right to an abortion?

Yeah, obviously not just Ohio, Nick, but the record is pretty clear that when abortion is on the ballot, liberalization of abortion rules prevails in every state.

Kansas was the first, of course, and now Ohio.

And I think that's why Jay Ashcroft and and, you know, the attorney general and others are fighting so hard to not give the people a voice on this issue because they understand not only is it likely that Missouri, based on other states, would approve such an amendment, but in an election year or a general election year, it could really increase turnout.

If you put this on the ballot in November, you're going to get turnout in suburban areas in Missouri that you might not get otherwise, and that could hurt Republican prospects.

Now, is Josh Hawley in trouble?

No.

He's a Republican, likely to be elected governor in Missouri in 2024.

The answer is yes.

But abortion is really a wild card in the state.

And I think Ohio is yet further proof of that.

Some Republicans this week saying that the Republicans should really just wave the white flag now on the abortion issue and concentrate on areas where they do better than Democrats, things like inflation, immigration, any evidence that Republican leaders in Missouri will take that tact?

Not in Missouri.

It's going to be I mean, listen, this issue is now back to the states, which is where a lot of pro-lifers wanted it to be.

And now you've got to accept the results at the state level.

And that's what you're seeing play out 88 times in a row, get overturned.

Abortion has been on the ballot in various states eight times.

You know, the side against pro-life has won out.

So that's trend is happening in red states and blue states and purple states.

And they're going to have to figure out an answer to it.

Still not a done deal, of course, to put that on the ballot in Missouri next year.

There's still like 11 different ideas for what that amendment should be.

Yes, they're still arguing over language, whether it'll actually even make it on to the ballot.

We'll see what happens going forward.

But the lesson really to Republican is, though, is even broader than just this issue in and of itself.

It's how they speak about abortion and women.

Women, whether you're pro-choice, anti we all know someone who's had an abortion and we have these conversations amongst each other and we know that the how it occurs is not how we hear it spoken about by many politicians, and that just turns people off.

BLANKET What was interesting to me actually, in the Ohio vote is how many people reported to national newspapers like The Washington Post, The New York Times, who said they are supporting Donald Trump in 2024, but they voted for that abortion amendment to enshrine that into the Constitution.

But a little missing because it didn't get as much attention.

Kyle in Ohio also is that they also approved legalized marijuana, recreational marijuana on this, the anniversary of it passing in the state of Missouri, as any of those that voting going to change attitudes in the state of Kansas about that issue.

One of the lone holdouts still on the issue of legalizing pot.

No.

No.

Okay.

I mean, I think the powers that be in Topeka still are pretty dead set against.

It is remarkable that Kansas is now surrounded by by states that have legalized it in some form or another.

But it still remains an issue, at least in what we cover in the politicians that represent Johnson County, that go to the because certainly there are some Democrats who who do make it a priority, but it still remains a rather fringe issue.

And it's not something that, you know, with certainly with Medicaid expansion coming back up and education funding still taking a lot of the of the oxygen in Topeka, I don't know how much heft it's going to have.

And I know the leaders in Topeka don't aren't behind it at all.

Just a couple of quick things.

First, I think it will be interesting to see in Kansas whether the abortion vote in Ohio and other places will change the taste, if you will, for further abortion regulations next year.

Going into an election year, whether the Johnson County legislative delegation at the state level will shy away from abortion because of these results.

That'll be an interesting thing to see.

And the other thing is, I think in Missouri, if there is a successful petition effort, you'll see a real push to try and put this on the ballot in August, not November, when you have a high Republican turnout for the primary involving the governor, maybe some other races.

That's the trick they tried in Kansas.

It backfired on them.

But I think that will be the effort in Missouri.

Just thinking about some of the other election trends we had, a number of you was asking us about a turnout I saw in Kansas City, Missouri was a 10% in Johnson County.

It was over 26%.

Now, is that good or bad?

That's very good.

It's very.

Good.

Two years ago, again, like apples to apples, another odd year, municipal election year, the final turnout ended up being about 25%.

But that was with a much watched race for Overland Park mayor.

So we thought that was great turnout.

And then this year, without any, like big city officials like that on the ballot, it still surpassed that and it's at 26% now.

They're still counting mail in and provisional.

So it's going to go up even more.

So I thought it was a great year for turnout in Johnson County.

And how about 10% in Kansas City, Missouri?

Was that good, Mary?

I think it should have been expected.

I mean, there just weren't those big candidates who were on the ballot.

It requires that sort of competition to get people at the polls.

And it really isn't that big, I.

Think, in that, you know, just the excitement of it, which plays into some of the misunderstandings about the usage tax, you know, it just didn't drive people to.

Vote.

That I will just note to in Kansas up until I think 2017, they had these odd year elections in April.

And I, I went back and looked at the trends.

Turnout for those April odd year elections was like seven, eight, 9%.

When they shifted it to November, it did automatically go up.

But even this year I think was great turnout.

I would also mention there were some mayors on the ballot, although Lee was Lenexa.

So it wasn't just there was a.

Lot of polling.

Places.

I didn't leave what they did picking Republican mayor did versus one that was backed by Democratic candidates replacing Peggy that would be in there forever.

And there were some.

Big so there were certainly some big ticket items to this election.

Yes, another election related news, by the way, some people were bent out of shape this week that the Kansas City mayor chose to put his thumb on the scale on Election Day by endorsing candidates on the Kansas side of state line, Quintin Lucas tweeted out, Support for a slew of candidates in Johnson County, all of them Democrats.

He quickly took the post down.

But what is the motivation, Pete, for him to weigh in on races that have nothing to do with Kansas City ego?

You know, he views himself as a regional mayor.

And listen, no one was waiting for his endorsement in Johnson County.

Right.

But it allows him to say, look at what I'm doing.

Look, l boy, people are going my way.

So it's all it's a play for, I think, part of his future, which could be a regional play.

You weren't thinking he was secretly going to be running for Kansas governor next time around?

Kyle Well, in all the forms that we did, Clint Lucas's name did not come up well, I just thought to put that fact there.

So I that's.

That's my right.

But is this does this say something about what he views as his next step, possibly in the Biden administration or possibly with the Democratic National Committee?

Yeah, If I had a nickel for every White House proposal for a Kansas City mayor, I'd be a rich man, which I am not.

But why?

Why antagonize people unnecessarily, though, when you don't?

Well, I think people understand he's a Democrat.

He wants Democrats to win.

And that's you know, he puts his finger in the air and.

I don't think he should done it.

But I mean, it's not surprising that he would go that direction in some ways.

It was not a smart move to put it out there.

But I think he does think regionally you have to you cannot be the mayor of KCMO and not understand that you're deeply impacted by everything that happens in the suburbs.

Unless the guy's got 160 homicides this year.

He was just in Germany last year.

He made it.

There was news that prominent businesses are want out of Kansas City.

It's like, you got it.

You got taxpayers that are worried about what's going on, potholes in their own town.

Stay out of Johnson County.

Yeah but not unopposed in Kansas City.

So that's.

Somebody like sorry.

I just hope he points out Lucas did fly back to Kansas City just ahead of Election Day after spending the better part of a week with the chiefs in Frankfurt.

In fact, pretty much every big political, civic and sports leader was in Germany for the big game, including Kansas Governor Laura Kelly.

And in addition to the on field action, they got to tour a 14th century castle and take a river cruise.

Now, who paid for all of that?

Was that US Chamber of Commerce through some company that I don't pay a pharmaceuticals, which has a headquarters in Kansas City.

Did anybody care about that?

No.

I mean, I think everybody was so caught up in Chiefs mania that.

They don't.

Mind every criticism.

There might have been a Quentin and others going and Lucas going is muted.

Well, but I do think within a certain demographic, you know, people who could never even fathom traveling internationally are a little graded.

They're like, okay, wait, I'm having trouble paying my grocery bill.

Why don't you all go over there?

There's there's going to be a bit of that.

Does it play out over long term?

I doubt it, but it's there.

When you put a show like this together every week, you can't get to every story grabbing the headlines.

What was the big local story?

We missed?

Victory in Germany.

Now the Chiefs get a break.

It's bye week by the way, with nearly 10 million viewers.

It was the most watched international game in NFL history.

Sporting KC continues its playoff run, beating Saint Louis and heading to the Western Conference semifinals.

An Israeli flag has already been stolen from the sister city's bridge on the plaza.

Now an Israeli flag stripped and defaced from a flagpole at a Jewish fraternity at CU.

I mean, honestly, it's just disheartening.

I've experienced it.

My entire life.

Meanwhile, the Blue Valley School District also crying foul over hate signs.

This time in a bathroom at Blue Valley High School, the same school where a swastika was found on the side of the football stadium on Martin Luther King Day.

You can't just look at a threat and just brush it off.

We're not going.

To do that.

KCR Under new management, it's the first week on the job, so Melissa Cooper, the first woman to serve as the city's aviation director and one of her first tasks might be figuring out how to stop car thefts at the new airport.

A new style report finds auto thefts are up significantly.

70 cars stolen from car lot since the start of the year.

Expect crowds as large as any water burger opening.

The new Whole Foods finally opens in Overland Park on Wednesday.

Previous store openings see people waiting in line for up to 3 hours.

And is it going to be Six Flags over Wolves of Fun?

We're still waiting for more details on that new amusement park mega merger that will see Kansas City's largest theme park gobbled up by Six Flags.

All righty.

Pete Mundo, did you pick one of those stories or something completely different?

We talked a lot about Republican losses on Tuesday.

I get it.

But in Wyandotte County, city councils and school board Republicans had a great night.

That may be part of the national shift.

We're seeing in national polling as well, where more minority folks are looking at Republican Party candidates.

I think that's worth looking into.

And you didn't mention people magazine naming Travis Kelce its sexiest athlete in American Psycho.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

Thank you, Kyle.

What did you put out there?

Travis Kelce, Lee Woods.

I'm not sure if we talked a lot about elections.

I will just say it's a story because it wasn't a story.

And that is just how smooth once again, the election administration was.

And Johnson County, again, with record setting turnout, hardly any whiffs of any problems, just compliments to all the volunteers who worked on.

Trump to write on programs like this.

We only talk about things when they're problems and not when things go right.

So that's a very good one.

Mary, Bits of what you did point out there, we have had within this past week a Kansas City public Library event was canceled last week due to a protest over with Palestinian protesters that feel like they weren't being heard.

Cleaver's office, they were protesters there.

We've had protests down at Mill Creek.

We have a very, very vibrant, long standing, important Jewish community here.

We also have an Arab-American community.

And I think people just need to pay attention to what is occurring and listen to them.

Everyone is so traumatized that needs to be given some thought.

It's causing a lot of division even in families in Kansas City.

Dave.

Kansas City is apparently getting a women's professional volleyball franchise, which we should mention because it chose the ascendancy of volleyball, which is actually drawing some pretty big crowds at the collegiate level.

And then women's sports, which we've talked about on this show, I still think Kansas City should be efforting to use that verb WNBA franchise.

I think that that's much more likely than an NBA franchise and would draw a big crowd.

I have my fingers crossed for the new Kansas City professional dog darts team coming to Kansas City, and hopefully that will be tough to get off in our future at T-Mobile Center, we will say our week has been reviewed, thanks to my colleague Mary Sanchez.

And 6 to 10 weekdays on talk radio, 95.7 FM, KCMO Pete Mundo from the Shawnee Mission Post, Kyle Palmer and former star news hound Dave Howling.

And I'm Nick Haines from all of here at Kansas City PBS.

Be well keep calm and carry on.