Democrat Laura Kelly is elected governor of Kansas, a deep red state that favored Trump in 2016, reports say. Laura Kelly wins in Kansas, which favored President Donald Trump by 20 percentage points in 2016. The race was called by NBC and ABC. Kelly defeated Republican candidate Kris Kobach, secretary of state, who is a close ally of Trump. Kelly replaces Sam Brownback, a Republican whose experiment in severe tax cuts to stimulate growth left the state budget in shambles. Ref. USAToday.