From 2011 to 2017, the district was represented by Republican Tim Huelskamp, who was originally elected in 2010 to succeed fellow Republican Jerry Moran, who in turn ran successfully for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Sam Brownback.

Huelskamp was re-elected twice in 2012 and 2014 but lost the 2016 Republican primary for a fourth term to obstetrician Roger Marshall.

With a Cook Partisan Voting Index rating of R+18, it is the most Republican district in Kansas.

[3] Republicans dominate every level of government, often winning by over 65 percent of the vote on the occasion that they face any opposition at all.

[citation needed] Proving this, since it assumed its present configuration in 1963, four of the district's former congressmen were later elected to the U.S. Senate: Bob Dole, Pat Roberts, Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall.

In 1872 three representatives-at-large were elected, but by the act of March 2, 1874, the legislature divided the state into three districts.

The 1st congressional district was composed of the counties of Leavenworth, Doniphan, Brown, Nemaha, Marshall, Washington, Republic, Jewell, Smith, Phillips, Norton, Graham, Rooks, Osborne, Mitchell, Cloud, Clay, Ottawa, Ellis, Ellsworth, Russell, Saline, Dickinson, Lincoln, Riley, Pottawatomie, Jackson, Jefferson, Atchison, Davis (Geary), "and all that territory lying north of the second standard parallel".

On March 5, 1883, Governor George Washington Glick approved an act of the legislature which reduced the 1st congressional district to only include the counties of Nemaha, Brown, Doniphan, Pottawatomie, Jackson, Atchison, Jefferson and Leavenworth.

Although the 1890 U.S. census showed the population of Kansas to be large enough to entitle the state to eight representatives, no additional district was created until 1905.

The current borders were established in 2012 by a panel of three federal judges, after the Kansas Legislature failed to pass new district maps.

The largest employment by industry was: educational, health and social services, 22.7%; manufacturing, 13.8%; retail trade, 11.7%; and agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining, 10.1%.