The following is a transcript of an interview with Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, chair of the Democratic Governors Association, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Aug. 11, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We want to go now to Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, good morning to you, Governor.
GOVERNOR LAURA KELLY: Good morning to you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, Governor, you are in a pretty unique position here. You are a twice elected Democratic governor of a pretty red state. Democrats have been bleeding support in rural America for years. How do Democrats woo back rural America?
GOV. KELLY: Well, you just have to get out there and listen and then produce. You know it when you- when you do that, you will see that, you know, while we label everybody red or blue, the fact of the matter is, here in Kansas, we’re Kansans. And so, you know, if you are a Democrat, but you share the values of most Kansans, you just need to get out there, talk with them, get them to know you, you to know them, and then they’ll develop that trust and put it in you to run the state.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Tim Walz is the first sitting governor to join a Democratic presidential ticket since Bill Clinton. He runs a pretty blue state, but there seems to be a bet that he can speak to the heartland, that he can speak to rural America. Do you think that’s overstated?
GOV. KELLY: No, not at all. I mean, Tim Walz is the epitome of the Midwestern dad. You could put him at any State Fair, on any Main Street and certainly in any Friday night football game in rural Kansas, and he would fit right in. I think we also need to remember that while Minnesota is a blue state, he represented in Congress for 12 years a very red section of Minnesota. So he understands rural Minnesota. He understands rural America, and I think that’s one of the reasons that he is a huge asset to the Harris Walz team.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So your state was one of the first to put the issue of abortion on a state ballot to leave it to the voters to decide, and those voters overwhelmingly rejected restrictions. So Democrats often pus-h point to your state as proof of concept that this is a galvanizing issue across party lines, but I found it interesting in interviews that you’ve said you try not to talk about abortion. Are Democrats miscalculating by putting it front and center?
GOV. KELLY: No, I don’t think so. I think I didn’t put it front and center because it wasn’t an issue that I could really deal with. It was a ballot issue. Those issues go right around me and onto the ballot and to the people. So I decided that it was better for me to let the people decide what they wanted to do with that, and for me to continue to focus on the other issues where I actually could have an impact, you know, on our infrastructure, on our economic development, on our schools. So- but we can see in other states where governors have come out very aggressively supporting women’s reproductive rights, Michigan, for instance, comes to mind, and it has worked. They have moved the needle in Michigan and other states because they have focused on that issue, and whether we want it to be an issue or not, it is, and I think it will be an issue in the presidential race this year too.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But I read that you said one of the reasons you personally tried not to talk about it was not just procedural, but also because you said Democrats are getting drawn into hot button culture war issues, and you said you said you don’t want to get dragged into conversations that you don’t want to have. What do you mean by that?
GOV. KELLY: Well, I don’t want to get distracted by issues that take us away from the core issues that a governor is responsible for. And that is just what I said before you’ve got to, you’ve got to make sure your schools are funded. You got to make sure your roads are built. You’ve got to make sure you’re building your economy. You got to make sure you’re fixing your child welfare system. We’ve got all sorts of other things that we need to be focused on. And what I found, particularly during my campaigns, is that the- my opponents wanted to use cultural, socially divisive issues to distract from the real issues because they didn’t have answers for that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Governor, it will be interesting to see if you can replicate your success, and we will track what is happening, not just in Kansas, but in some of these other gubernatorial races around the country. We’ll be right back.