In the race for the 4th District seat, Republican incumbent Ron Estes and his Democratic opponent, James Thompson, are pretty much political polar opposites.
Estes is a conservative – fiscally and socially. In his first year and a half in office, he voted in line with President Trump about 94 percent of the time, according to an analysis of congressional voting records[1] by the website Five Thirty Eight.
Thompson is a progressive Democrat of the Bernie Sanders mold: The Vermont senator and former presidential candidate endorsed Thompson at a campaign rally earlier this year.
A recent debate in Wichita, hosted by KMUW and KWCH Channel 12, highlighted the candidates’ political differences, on everything from health care to tax policy.
Estes and Thompson don’t disagree on everything: On guns, both support the 2nd Amendment, and reject efforts to ban assault rifles. Estes is a member of the NRA, and Thompson, a U.S. Army veteran, says he owns guns.
But on trade, Estes is supportive of the tariffs the Trump administration put in place on Chinese goods like steel and aluminum – tariffs Estes says are necessary to even the playing field, even if there’s some “temporary pain.”
“Unfortunately the process for doing that is starting off with tariffs," he said, "because that’s the only reason you can bring someone to the table to negotiate an agreement that can move forward.”
Thompson, though, is critical of Trump’s trade policies. He says the resulting trade war has hurt the 4th District.
“The problem that we have here now, though, is we’re picking and choosing who’s gonna be a winner or loser with these tariffs," he said. "Right now our farmers are the losers with these tariffs, because they’re gonna lose the
