Editor’s Note: Sarah Preu’s fundraising total, according to federal filings, has been updated. Also, a correction has been made to note that Hartzell Gray is challenging Rep. Mark Alford in Missouri.
In Colorado, New York City and Pennsylvania, Democratic Socialists have been having a big moment.
Melat Kiros recently beat 15-term Democratic Congresswoman Diana DeGette in a primary for a Denver-area seat. Chris Rabb won a heated three-way primary for a swing congressional seat in Pennsylvania. And, maybe most notably, two Zohran Mamdani-endorsed candidates with Democratic Socialist ties surged to victory in primaries last month in the New York City area.
All won in deep-blue Democratic strongholds. In more purple (though increasingly blue) Johnson County, another candidate who aligns with the Democratic Socialist movement is also trying to mount her own candidacy against the party establishment.
However, fundraising totals and a check of energy on social media suggest that the effort in Kansas’s Third Congressional District is struggling to create the same kind of buzz.
Sarah Preu, who works in technology as a project manager and owns a technical communications company, says she is a “true blue Democrat” who has voted for U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids each of the four times she’s been elected to Washington since 2018.
Preu says she’s running because “I feel that my party has drifted so far across the aisle that I don’t recognize it as the party of (civil rights activists) John Lewis, Jesse Jackson and (former vice presidential nominee) Geraldine Ferraro. Those were my heroes growing up.”
She says that voters, particularly younger ones, are tired of the type of bipartisanship that doesn’t result in making life substantially better for them. But there are signs her campaign has not taken off.
Preu has run no TV or online ads, conducted no polls or hired any consultants, according to the accounting on her campaign website transparency webpage. The same webpage shows she averages about eight donations a week.
According to federal campaign finance filings for the period ending June 30, Preu’s fundraising total was $17,439, a number that puts her at a severe disadvantage to Davids, whose latest Federal Election Commission filing showed $2.9 million from the beginning of January, 2025 to the end of March, 2026.
Prediction markets currently give Davids a 98% chance of winning the nomination and moving on to November, where she’d likely again be the favorite to win a fifth term.
Immigration issues spurred Preu to run
The Fairway Democrat said she was inspired to run last winter, as violence erupted in Minnesota between immigration officers and protesters and officers shot and killed two protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
The incidents prompted her to check Davids’ voting record, and she found it didn’t align with her own views in favor of curtailing ICE funding, as well as other issues like suporting a ceasefire in Gaza and Medicare for All.
Those issues have become her platform planks.
She’s for abolishing ICE, a policy she has “no qualms” and “no apologies” for, according to her campaign website.
She also vows not to take political action committee money unless it’s from a nonprofit that agrees with her values. That means no corporate PACs or money from the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.
She does credit Davids with work on a recent housing bill that became law without President Trump’s signature, but on her web page she faults Davids for voting too often with conservatives in the name of bipartisanship.
In an interview, she clarified that position, saying, “It feels like we need to have a primary and have a marketplace of ideas in this election cycle. There’s nothing wrong with bipartisanship.”
Preu aligns with Democratic Socialists
Her views line up with key positions of the Democratic Socialists of America, which claims itself to be the largest socialist organization in America with more than 100,000 members.
The Kansas City arm of that group has a “Monarch Pledge” asking businesses and service providers to refrain from supporting ICE. At the national level, a new PAC critical of U.S. policy on Gaza is fueling some of the headline-grabbing DSA-aligned wins, according to a CNN report.
The DSA is not a political party, but an interest group with a guiding philosophy committed to using democracy to restructure society in a way that weakens corporations and increases the power of working people, per its webpage.
Preu does not have an endorsement from the Democratic Socialists, but says she would welcome one.
“I think it’s a great movement,” she said.
She said the group has been interested in her campaign and supportive but that their endorsement process is long and involved.
The group has backed Hartzell Gray, a former Kansas City radio anchor now challenging Republican Rep. Mark Alford in Missouri.
Although the word “socialist” may alarm some people, “the basic tenets of what the DSA seems to espouse are really social programs in exchange for your tax dollars. In that way I absolutely align,” Preu said.
Preu, 49, said the enthusiasm of young voters has encouraged her. She believes they are looking for change and effective government. The Democratic Socialist movement has been a reaction to the corporate influence on campaigns, she said, and she’s hopeful they’ll make a difference in her own campaign.
“These kids make a lot of sense,” Preu said. “This is a generation of people who grew up post 9/11. These kids have grown up under a government that couldn’t even promise their safety. They have every right to try to remake this system that has really failed them.”
She added that older rural people are sharing the same reality.
Doubts about a 3rd District upset
Greg Vonnahme, associate professor of political science at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, said that although the DSA has gotten traction in some parts of the country as a youth movement, he doubts it will translate into an upset in Johnson County.
For one thing, the big recent DSA wins have happened in heavily blue areas where Democratic incumbents have often been long-term officeholders.
“Sharice Davids is one of the fresher faces,” having been first elected to Congress in 2018, he said. “It’s not like targeting an incumbent who has been in for 40 years.”
Johnson County also does not have as long a history of voting Democratic as have New York City and some other places where Democratic Socialists won, he said. Johnson County has a lot of moderate suburban voters who, before Trump was elected, may have skewed Republican, he added.
Davids has also survived three reelections, despite a 2022 redrawing of her district by Kansas lawmakers intended to make it more difficult for her to win. She has won all those races by double-digit percentage point margins.
JoCo Dems aren’t weighing in
Preu was among several Democratic candidates who learned recently that they would not receive campaign support from the county Democratic Party.
The county Democrats normally don’t endorse primary candidates but they do offer various forms of support, including training sessions and a listing in the voter guide for those who opt in.
However, this year, the party sent notices to several candidates for U.S. Senate and to Preu saying it would not include them in that support.
Party Chair Deann Mitchell did not respond to the Post’s request for comment for this story, but she told the Kansas City Star the party can decide to withhold support from campaigns that don’t demonstrate serious effort, including in fundraising.
Preu said in an open letter to the county Democrats’ executive board that she was disheartened but not surprised.
“We still have a primary process and whether the leadership likes it or not, we don’t have an aristocracy predestined for Congress. We working people still get our chance to challenge leadership and flex the collective power of democracy,” she wrote.
“I didn’t expect them to welcome me with open arms, but I didn’t expect them to willfully leave myself and other candidates off the voter guide,” she said in an interview with the Post.
A check with the current voter guide on the Johnson County Democrats’ webpage currently says the Kansas Public Disclosure Commission has cited a recent state law that prevents parties from using funds to platform any federal candidates. Instead of listing the Congressional and Senate candidates, the Democrats’ page points readers to the Johnson County Election Office website, which lists candidates here.
Davids touts track record of bipartisanship
Davids’ campaign spokesperson, Zac Donley, responded to questions about the race, saying Davids’ focus is on delivering results for the people she represents.
“She is confident in the broad coalition she has built across the community. Rep. Davids has always been clear that she’ll work with anyone to get things done while also standing up against extreme policies that put billionaires and corporate donors ahead of hardworking Kansans.
“That commonsense approach has helped her pass nine bipartisan bills during President Trump’s second term, a rare accomplishment for a Democrat in this Republican-led Congress,” Donley said.
Disadvantages aside, Preu is hoping for a positive outcome.
“I hope to win,” Preu said of her candidacy. “I expect it will be a lot closer than many establishment people believe it will be. I believe it’s a distinct possibility. I do. So yeah, I think I can win this.”
But if she doesn’t, she’ll support the eventual nominee.
“Of course we don’t want to lose a blue seat. I’m a pragmatic person from that perspective. If we have to vote in corporate Democrats, then that is the lay of the land. I genuinely believe we’re ready for a better option.
“I was raised a Democrat. I have been a lifelong Democrat. I’m not leaving this party. I just want to see us platform the kind of leadership that inspired me growing up.”
On the Republican side, former Shawnee city councilmember Eric Jenkins is running against U.S. Army veteran Chase LaPorte.
The winner of each party’s primary on Aug. 4 will face each other in November.
