--- title: Donald Trump: What He Got Wrong About the Kansas Election description: President Trump praised the GOP victory in Tuesday's special election in Kansas. But there are some key details he misrepresented canonical: https://time.com/4736025/trump-kansas-special-election-tweet/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-12T15:26:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T04:21:36.968Z article:section: Politics og:title: Here’s What President Trump Got Wrong About the Kansas Special Election og:description: 1. It wasn't an easy victory. og:url: https://time.com/4736025/trump-kansas-special-election-tweet/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt22ac33ecd8659dc2/6988c26fcf40a836fbc47304/donald-trump-kansas-election-tweet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4000 og:image:height: 2250 og:image:alt: President Donald Trump Leads A Strategic And Policy CEO Discussion og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here’s What President Trump Got Wrong About the Kansas Special Election twitter:description: 1. It wasn't an easy victory. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt22ac33ecd8659dc2/6988c26fcf40a836fbc47304/donald-trump-kansas-election-tweet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here’s What President Trump Got Wrong About the Kansas Special Election > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Apr 12, 2017 3:26 PM UTC  President Donald Trump speaks during a strategic and policy discussion with CEOs in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) on April 11, 2017 in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump speaks during a strategic and policy discussion with CEOs in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) on April 11, 2017 in Washington, D.C.Olivier Douliery—Pool/Getty Images  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Apr 12, 2017 3:26 PM UTC President Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to praise the victory of a Republican candidate in Tuesday’s s[pecial congressional election](http://time.com/4733441/kansas-special-election-republicans-donald-trump/) in Kansas. “Great win in Kansas last night for Ron Estes, easily winning the Congressional race against the Dems, who spent heavily & predicted victory!” Trump said in a [tweet](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/852138509355933697) Wednesday morning. Estes did, in fact, win the election for the House seat vacated by [Mike Pompeo](http://time.com/4576939/mike-pompeo-cia-donald-trump-what-to-know/), who left to become Trump’s CIA director. But Trump’s tweet missed several key points about the surprisingly competitive race. ## Republicans didn’t win ‘easily’ Estes defeated Democratic candidate Jim Thompson by less than seven points, earning 52.5% of the vote while Thompson earned 45.7% — a difference of about 8,000 votes, according to the [New York _Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/kansas-house-special-election-district-4). That’s a relatively small margin in Kansas’ right-leaning 4th district, which Trump won by 27 points and Pompeo won by more than 30 points in November. ## Democrats didn’t spend ‘heavily’ The race attracted almost no national support from the Democratic Party. While the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched a phone campaign to reach 25,000 households on the day before the election, the committee did not devote other financial resources, the [Kansas City _Star_ reported](http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article143857629.html). “There was potential here,” Thompson’s campaign manager, Colin Curtis, told the _Star_ before the election, discussing the campaign’s struggle to attract funding. “We tried to make that selling point. We didn’t get buy-in initially.” Meanwhile, the National Republican Congressional Committee [poured $130,000](http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00075820/1155493/se) into the race, and other GOP leaders made a strong push for Estes. Both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence recorded robocalls for him, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz appeared with him at a campaign rally in Wichita on Monday. ## A Democratic victory was always unlikely Kansas has traditionally been a Republican-leaning state, and the state’s 4th congressional district has historically voted red. (Republican lawmakers have held the 4th district seat for more than two decades.) Tuesday’s special election gained national attention simply because it was a competitive race. The significant last-minute push by GOP leaders suggested that [Republicans were nervous](http://time.com/4733441/kansas-special-election-republicans-donald-trump/) and sent a message that an upset was a possibility. Political strategists noted that even if Thompson managed to narrow Estes’ margin of victory, it could spell trouble for the Republican Party in future elections. “If \[Democrats\] get it down to under 10 percentage points, that would be some kind of victory,” said University of Kansas political science professor Burdett Loomis the day before the election. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4736025/trump-kansas-special-election-tweet/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4736025/trump-kansas-special-election-tweet/"},"headline":"Here’s What President Trump Got Wrong About the Kansas Special Election","datePublished":"2017-04-12T15:26:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:21:36.968Z","description":"It wasn't exactly an easy victory","url":"https://time.com/4736025/trump-kansas-special-election-tweet/","keywords":["Congress","White House","Kansas","Donald Trump","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt22ac33ecd8659dc2/6988c26fcf40a836fbc47304/donald-trump-kansas-election-tweet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katie Reilly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt22ac33ecd8659dc2/6988c26fcf40a836fbc47304/donald-trump-kansas-election-tweet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Donald Trump Leads A Strategic And Policy CEO Discussion","caption":"President Donald Trump Leads A Strategic And Policy CEO Discussion","creditText":"Olivier Douliery—Pool/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4736025/trump-kansas-special-election-tweet/","name":"Here’s What President Trump Got Wrong About the Kansas Special Election"}}]}] ```