Kansas had been a powerfully Republican state during the 1920s (as it had been during its first quarter-century of statehood), although it did not possess the isolationist sentiment found in Appalachia or the Upper Midwest.

Consequently, agricultural states like Kansas, which had already been hit by declining prices during the 1920s, were severely affected by a wave of foreclosures and outmigration.

[3] Outside of the prosperous Northeast,[4] Hoover's attempts at apologetics were a complete failure,[5] with the result that Roosevelt carried every state west of the Appalachians.

Kansas – the home state of incumbent Vice-president Curtis – was Hoover's strongest state west of the Mississippi, but he still lost ninety-one counties and almost twenty-eight percent of the vote vis-à-vis his overwhelming triumph against Smith in 1928.

[6] As of the 2020 presidential election[update], this also remains the last time that the following counties have voted for a Democratic presidential candidate: Jefferson, Clay, Coffey, Dickinson, Elk, Jackson, Jewell, Linn, Logan, Marshall, Norton, Phillips, Pottawatomie, Republic, Smith, Wabaunsee,[a] Wallace, Washington, Wilson and Woodson.