By Bryan Lowry and Katy Bergen

The Kansas City Star

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas voters made history Tuesday night when they selected Sharice Davids to be their next congresswoman.

Davids, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, will be the first Native American woman to serve in Congress —a distinction she was expected to share with New Mexico’s Deb Haaland, who was also heading to victory Tuesday night — and the first openly LGBT person to represent the state of Kansas.

The political newcomer defeated four-term incumbent Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder to capture Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District. It’s the first time a Democrat has won the suburban Kansas City seat in a decade.

“It’s significant beyond Kansas. This is significant to all LGBT folks in the Midwest. She really feels like the voice for all the LGBT folks in the Midwest. And I know that there’s a similar feeling in Native American communities,” said Davis Hammett, an LGBT rights activist from Topeka.

Davids’ campaign benefited from anger against Republican President Donald Trump in a district that went for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the previous election, but she also took steps to engage voters that had felt ignored by previous Democratic nominees to pull off a victory that may have seemed improbable a year ago.

“Too many of us have gone through our entire lives not feeling seen and not feeling heard,” Davids told her supporters Monday night at a rally on the eve of the election.

Davids spent five years working on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota before being selected for the prestigious White House fellowship program in 2016. The people who knew her on Pine Ridge have been watching the Kansas race closely.

“To see an indigenous woman in leadership would be a source of inspiration for a lot of young people here,” said Liz Welch, who worked with Davids at the Thunder Valley Community Development Corp., a nonprofit that built housing on the reservation.

Davids joins a line of other Native American trailblazers to come from Kansas. Her election to Congress comes 90 years after Kansan Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw Nation, was elected vice president serving under Herbert Hoover.

Her election also comes just six months after the Kansas Legislature passed a law that enabled faith-based adoption agencies to remain eligible for state dollars even if they refuse to place children with same-sex couples.

The LGBT community has felt like “a punching bag” for the state’s politicians in recent years, but Davids’ election means LGBT Kansans are “finally going to have a seat at the table,” Hammett said.

“There’s this image of Kansas as this backward, bigoted place and it’s really powerful to see something positive come from it,” said Hammett, who co-founded Equality House, a rainbow-painted house in Topeka that sits across the street from the vehemently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church. “Having figures like Sharice Davids literally saves lives.”

Roughly a month before Election Day, Davids paid a visit to Q-Space, an LGBT youth group of 30 young people that meets weekly at Saint Andrew Christian Church in Olathe.

Davids talked to the kids about coming out to her family, listened to their stories about bullying and offered words of comfort, said Cassandra Peters, the youth group’s director.

“She took time to hug each and every one of them and take a picture with them,” Peters said. “If they wanted a sign, she autographed it. And it was just so comforting for them to think this person is a politician and cares about them.”

Yoder repeatedly hammered Davids as too inexperienced and too radical to represent the district, which covers Johnson, Wyandotte and Miami counties.

Despite overseeing the bill that pays for Trump’s pet project, a wall along the southern border, Yoder sought to distance himself from Trump and emphasize his deep ties to the community forged over 15 years of public service in the Kansas Legislature and U.S. House.

“For some voters this is a national thing and the local candidates don’t matter, but for many voters this is an individualized race. And one of the reasons this district can swing wildly is the voters here pay very close attention to the issues on the ground, so they split tickets,” Yoder said Monday.

Davids’ candidacy was boosted by first-time volunteers and first-timer voters, who were motivated to get involved in the wake of Trump’s election.

Tiana Wiscomb, a 30-year-old Overland Park resident, said she has never voted before this election. She voted a straight Democratic ticket.

Ashish Patel, a 32-year-old software developer from Johnson County, said he never volunteered for a campaign before this election. “To cut a tree, you have to remove the supports,” Patel said in reference to Trump and Yoder.

Patrick Miller, a political scientist at the University of Kansas, said Yoder struggled to craft a clear message on the president. “For someone like Yoder it’s really difficult to deal with Trump when your record is very much in Trump’s camp but how you want to be perceived is not.”

Davids’ election demonstrates that Kansas is more culturally diverse and politically competitive than many national pundits realize, Miller said.

“I am often surprised by how many times I encounter reporters who think the entire state is small towns of 500 people who are 90 percent for Trump,” Miller said. “I think when we do come onto the radar it forces people to realize there’s more happening.”

Davids also took steps to engage voters in Wyandotte County, something previous Democratic nominees have struggled to do in recent elections.

“Because I live in Johnson County I think I have to be really intentional to make sure we’re going into Wyandotte County as much as possible and building relationships that weren’t there previously,” Davids said Monday. “I think outreach to every single community is important.”

Davids’ promise to open a district office in the county appealed to voters in downtown Kansas City, Kan. Yoder only has an office in Johnson County.

“That’s the difference,” said Mike McIntosh, a 55-year-old contractor, who voted Monday morning at the Wyandotte County Election Office. “If you’re going to represent the people you (should) be where the people are to represent and not somewhere else. He’s strictly on one side.”

Chandler Herron, a 20-year-old musician from Kansas City, Kan., pointed to education as the main reason he voted for Davids, who has talked on the campaign trail about her own experience with student debt.

Referencing Davids’ stint as a mixed martial arts fighter, Herron said, “I just felt like she can have my back in office and she could have my back in a fight.”