The 2008 United States Senate election in Kansas was held on November 4, 2008. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator

Pat Roberts Charles Patrick Roberts (born April 20, 1936) is a retired American politician and journalist who served as a United States senator from Kansas from 1997 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Roberts served 8 terms in the U.S. House of Rep ...

won re-election to a third term.

Background

The state of Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932. Kansas's other Republican Senator

Sam Brownback Samuel Dale Brownback (born September 12, 1956) is an American attorney, politician, diplomat, and member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party who served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Fr ...

announced that he is retiring due to "self-imposed term limits," which meant Roberts became the

senior senator United States senators are conventionally ranked by the length of their tenure in the Senate. The senator in each U.S. state with the longer time in office is known as the ''senior senator''; the other is the ''junior senator''. This convention ...

from Kansas in 2011. It is considered one of the most Republican states in the U.S. The last time its electors went to a Democrat was the Presidential Election of 1964, when

Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

carried the state over

Barry Goldwater Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and United States Air Force officer who was a five-term U.S. Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party nominee for president ...

. Roberts had announced ahead of the 1996 election that "I plan only to serve two terms in the U.S. Senate", but he broke that pledge in this election.

Republican primary

Candidates

, incumbent U.S. Senator

Results

Democratic primary

Candidates

Jim Slattery James Charles Slattery (born August 4, 1948) is an American politician. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 1995 representing Kansas's 2nd congressional district as a Democrat, was the Democratic nominee for governor in 19 ...

, former U.S. Representative and nominee for Governor in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nels ...

* Lee Jones, nominee for the U.S. Senate in

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight ...

Results

General election

Candidates

(R), incumbent U.S. Senator *

(D), former U.S. Representative * Randall Hodgkinson (L), attorney * Joseph L. Martin (Re), nominee for Secretary of State in 2006

Predictions

Polling

Results

Roberts won by 24 percentage points over Slattery, carrying 102 of the state's 105 counties. Slattery only carried three counties in northeast Kansas: Atchison,

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals *Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking * Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil ...

and Wyandotte.

References

External links

Elections & Legislative
from the ''Kansas Secretary of State''
U.S. Congress candidates for Kansas
at

Project Vote Smart Vote Smart, formerly called Project Vote Smart, is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that collects and distributes information on candidates for public office in the United States. It covers candidates and elected officials in s ...

Kansas, U.S. Senate

CQ Politics Congressional Quarterly, Inc., or CQ, is part of a privately owned publishing company called CQ Roll Call that produces a number of publications reporting primarily on the United States Congress. CQ was acquired by the Economist Group and combine ...

Kansas U.S. Senate
from ''OurCampaigns.com''
Kansas U.S. Senate race
from ''2008 Race Tracker''
Campaign contributions
from

OpenSecrets OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying. It was created from a merger of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and the National Institute on Money in Politics (NIMP) ...

Roberts (R-i) vs Slattery (D)
graph of multiple polls from Pollster.com * ''Official campaign websites'' (Archived) *
Pat Roberts for US Senate
*
Jim Slattery for US Senate
*
Lee Jones for US Senate
{{2008 United States elections

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

Kansas Kansas () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its Capital city, capital is Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita, Kansas, Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebras ...

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and po ...

Background

Republican primary

Candidates

Results

Democratic primary

Candidates

Results

General election

Candidates

Predictions

Polling

Results

See also

References

External links