Paul Davis election results, 2004 to 2018

Figures are Ballotpedia's, which compiles the Kansas Secretary of State's certified results. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place as Ballotpedia shows them.

Kansas House District 46

Ballotpedia lists Davis as the winner of District 46 in 2004 and 2006, without vote totals, and gives him unopposed in the 2008 general election (8,920 votes), in the 2010 primary and general, and in the 2012 primary and general. He took his seat in January 2003. He did not run for the House again in 2014.

2014: Governor of Kansas

The ticket. Davis announced on September 17, 2013, in an online video. On October 22, during a school bus tour built around education, he named Jill Docking as his running mate. Docking, a Wichita financial adviser and former chair of the Kansas Board of Regents, had lost a 1996 U.S. Senate race to Brownback. The Davis-Docking ticket was unopposed in the August 5, 2014 Democratic primary. Brownback beat Jennifer Winn in the Republican primary, 63.2 percent to 36.8 percent.

The case each side made. Davis argued that the 2012 income tax cuts had left a budget hole and squeezed schools. In June 2014 he proposed freezing income tax rates where they were, pausing the cuts still scheduled, until school funding returned to pre-recession levels, and he named two former lieutenant governors, Republican Gary Sherrer and Democrat John Moore, as economic advisers. Brownback's side said overall education spending had grown, that economic growth would close the gap, and that Davis had voted for the 2009 and 2010 budgets that cut schools.

Endorsements. On July 15, 2014, more than 100 current and former Republican officeholders, among them former Senate President Dick Bond and Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, endorsed Davis at a Topeka event. The Kansas Fraternal Order of Police and the Kansas State Firefighters PAC backed him in August, and the Kansas Highway Patrol's PAC in October. Brownback's campaign called the patrol endorsement unsurprising. Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum endorsed Brownback the day before the Republican group's event.

How the 2014 race was fought

Davis's first TV ad ran for only a few hours on September 3, 2014. The Kansas Republican Party pointed out that one of the people who appeared in it had a past criminal case, and the campaign pulled the ad and apologized. That same month a newspaper story revived a late-1990s police raid on a strip club near Coffeyville, where Davis, then a young lawyer whose firm represented the owner, was present. He was not arrested or charged. The Republican Governors Association built a TV ad around it beginning September 30. Davis's campaign called the story a smear. Sources give the raid's year as 1996 or 1998.

The RGA's earlier August ad said "name the tax or fee, and Paul Davis probably voted to hike it." Davis's own ads focused on school cuts, including one called "Tradition," and on the tax cuts. In 2015 Davis said Republican Governors Association spending had made about a $5 million difference.

Result. Brownback won by 32,096 votes. Davis carried the 2nd Congressional District by about six points, according to the Kansas News Service, which became the starting point for his 2018 run.

2018: Kansas's 2nd Congressional District

The open seat. Republican Rep. Lynn Jenkins announced in January 2017 that she would not seek a sixth term. Davis launched his campaign in Topeka on August 15, 2017. He said he would not support Nancy Pelosi for leader, backed a constitutional amendment to curb "dark money," and compared Republican federal tax proposals to Brownback's Kansas experiment. Donald Trump had carried the district by 19 points in 2016, and Cook rated it R+10.

Primaries, August 7, 2018. Davis was unopposed for the Democratic nomination (38,846 votes). Steve Watkins, an Army veteran and West Point graduate running for the first time, won a seven-way Republican primary with 26.5 percent, ahead of state Sens. Caryn Tyson (23.5 percent), Steve Fitzgerald (12.2 percent) and Dennis Pyle (12.1 percent), and state Rep. Kevin Jones (14.8 percent).

Money. Davis led every candidate in fundraising through the primary, according to quarterly reports covered by the Kansas News Service and the Lawrence Journal-World. His committee reported $408,650 in its first 45 days and $3,985,403 for the cycle. Outside groups spent heavily on both sides. Through late October, Ballotpedia counted $3.9 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund and $1.1 million from the National Republican Congressional Committee, most of it against Davis, and $2.8 million from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, most of it against Watkins.

How the 2018 race was fought

Davis presented himself as a bipartisan dealmaker. On September 17, 2018, about three dozen current and former Republican officeholders, including former Lt. Gov. Gary Sherrer, former Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger and Rep. Tom Sloan, endorsed him. Watkins aligned with President Trump on border security, called for repealing the Affordable Care Act and said Davis had spent his life as "a politician or paid lobbyist." Watkins's campaign said voters wanted lower taxes, tighter borders and a speaker other than Pelosi.

Attacks went both ways. A Congressional Leadership Fund ad revived the 1990s raid and said Davis had voted to let strip clubs open near homes and schools; PolitiFact rated it Half True. Over the final two months, news reports questioned parts of Watkins's biography, and he acknowledged overstating his role in founding a security company. The candidates met at a forum in Independence on October 3, on WIBW-TV on October 18 and on KTWU-TV on October 22, and differed most sharply on Social Security, health care and immigration. Polls stayed close: New York Times/Siena had Davis ahead 45-44 in September and 41-37 in late October, while Change Research had Watkins ahead 45-44.

Result. Watkins won by 2,239 votes on November 6, 2018. All three major forecasters rated the race a toss-up in October. Watkins served one term and lost the 2020 Republican primary to Jake LaTurner.

After 2018

Davis has not been a candidate since. He is not among the candidates in Kansas's August 4, 2026 primaries for governor, U.S. Senate or U.S. House (checked November 8, 2026).