Sharice Davids | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2019 | |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromKansas's3rd district | |
| Assumed office January 3, 2019 | |
| Preceded by | Kevin Yoder |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Sharice Lynnette Davids (1980-05-22)May 22, 1980 (age 45) |
| Nationality | American Ho-Chunk |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Education | |
| Website | House website Campaign website |
Sharice Lynnette Davids (/ʃəˈris/;[1] born May 22, 1980) is an American politician, attorney, and formermixed martial artist serving as theU.S. representative fromKansas's 3rd congressional district since 2019.[2] A member of theDemocratic Party, she represents a district that includes most of the Kansas side of theKansas City metropolitan area, includingKansas City,Overland Park,Prairie Village,Leawood,Lenexa, andOlathe.
Davids waselected in 2018 and became the first Democrat to represent a Kansas congressional district in a decade.[3] She is thefirst openly LGBT Native American elected to theUnited States Congress, thefirst openly LGBT person elected to theUnited States Congress fromKansas, and one of the first twoNative American women (alongsideDeb Haaland) elected to theUnited States Congress.[4][5][6] She is also the second Native American to represent Kansas in Congress, afterCharles Curtis, who wasHerbert Hoover's vice president. Davids is currently the only Democrat in Kansas' Republican-dominated congressional delegation.
An attorney educated at theUniversity of Missouri–Kansas City andCornell Law School, Davids was also a professionalmixed martial artist in the 2010s.[7]
Davids was born on May 22, 1980, inFrankfurt, West Germany.[8] She is a member of theHo-Chunk people, and an enrolled member of theHo-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin.[9]
Her maternal grandfather, Fredrick J. Davids, aUnited States Army veteran, was born into theMohican Nation Stockbridge-Munsee Band, in Oneida, Wisconsin.[10] Sharice was raised by her single mother, Crystal Herriage, who served in the U.S. Army.[11]
Davids attendedLeavenworth High School,Haskell Indian Nations University,Johnson County Community College, theUniversity of Kansas, and theUniversity of Missouri–Kansas City, graduating from the latter with abachelor's degree in business administration in 2007.[12][13][14] She earned herJuris Doctor fromCornell Law School in 2010.[15] She lives inRoeland Park, Kansas, and was endorsed for reelection byThe Kansas City Star in 2022.[16][17]
Davids began competing inmixed martial arts (MMA) as an amateur in 2006, and went professional in 2013. She had a 5–1win–loss record as an amateur and a 1–1 record as a professional.[18] She tried out forThe Ultimate Fighter but did not make it onto the show, leading her to shift her focus away from MMA to travel the U.S. and live onNative American reservations to work with the communities on economic and community development programs.[13]
Professional
| Res. | Record | Opponent | Method | Event | Date | Round | Time | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loss | 1–1 | Rosa Acevedo | Decision (unanimous) | LCS 18 | March 1, 2014 | 3 | 5:00 | Torrington, Wyoming, United States | [19][20] |
| Win | 1–0 | Nadia Nixon | Submission (triangle choke) | Shamrock FC – Conquest | November 1, 2013 | 1 | 2:08 | Kansas City, Missouri, United States | [20] |
Amateur
| Res. | Record | Opponent | Method | Event | Date | Round | Time | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Win | 5–1 | Heather Rafferty | Decision (unanimous) | Pride & Pain MMA | October 20, 2012 | 3 | 3:00 | Hot Springs, South Dakota, United States | [20] |
| Win | 4–1 | Chandra Engel | Submission (triangle choke) | Ultimate Blue Corner Battles | January 27, 2012 | 1 | 2:36 | North Kansas City, Missouri, United States | [20] |
| Win | 3–1 | Ronni Nanney | TKO (knee & punch) | Ultimate Blue Corner Battles | April 1, 2011 | 3 | 3:00 | North Kansas City, Missouri, United States | [20] |
| Win | 2–1 | Stacia Hoss | TKO (knee & punch) | Ultimate Blue Corner Battles | August 27, 2010 | 1 | 0:27 | North Kansas City, Missouri, United States | [20] |
| Loss | 1–1 | Erin Roper | Submission (armbar) | Shamrock FC: Midwest Fightfest | May 11, 2007 | 1 | 1:53 | Kansas City, Missouri, United States | [20] |
| Win | 1–0 | Courtney Martel | Technical Submission (triangle choke) | ISFC Midwest Fightfest | October 27, 2006 | 1 | 0:44 | Kansas City, Missouri, United States | [20] |
Davids began her legal career atSNR Denton in 2010.[21] She later directed community and economic development for thePine Ridge Indian Reservation.[22]
In 2016, Davids worked as aWhite House fellow in theDepartment of Transportation during the transition between theObama andTrump administrations.[12]
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In 2018, Davids ran for theU.S. House of Representatives inKansas's 3rd congressional district. In the August Democraticprimary election, she defeatedBrent Welder, who had been endorsed byBernie Sanders, 37% to 34%.[23]
During a July 2018 episode of theMillennial Politics Podcast, host Jordan Valerie Allen asked Davids whether she supported abolishingICE, the agency that enforces immigration laws and falls within the oversight of theDepartment of Homeland Security, to which Davids responded, "you asked me about defunding, which I think is probably essentially the same thing. But yeah."[24][25] Despite denials by Davids through campaign statements and a television advertisement, theAssociated Press fact checker ruled that she did in fact lend her support to ending the agency.[26]
In October, Kansas CityNPR member stationKCUR fact-checked the claims that incumbent representativeKevin Yoder and Davids made in separate interviews on its station and gave Yoder an "F". Yoder said that immigrants were making false asylum claims and would increase crime. Davids said that she supported single-payer health care, but it could not be enacted with Republicans in the White House. Meanwhile, she supports short-term goals like allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and getting generics to market faster. KCUR said that Davids's claim that teachers are not paid enough and can no longer take tax deductions for buying their own school supplies, was "partly true and partly false" since the tax deduction had been reinstated.[27]
Davids defeated Yoder in the November 8 general election by 53.6% to 43.9%.[28][29] Upon her swearing-in on January 3, 2019, she became the first Democrat to represent Kansas in the House sinceDennis Moore left office in 2011.[3] She is also only the second Democrat to represent what is now the 3rd since 1963.
In 2019, Davids andDeb Haaland ofNew Mexico, a member of theLaguna Pueblo tribe, became the first Native American women to serve in Congress. In March 2021, Haaland left Congress to become thesecretary of interior in the Biden administration.[30]
In 2020, Davids was unopposed in the Democratic primary, winning 74,437 votes.[31]
Davids faced the Republican nominee,Cerner Corporation executive and formerKansas Republican Party chairwomanAmanda Adkins, in the general election.[32] Davids was endorsed by theKansas City Star.[33]
Davids defeated Adkins with 53.6% of the vote to Adkins's 43.6%.[34]
In 2022, Davids ran for reelection in the newly redrawn 3rd district. Redistricting shifted the district's boundaries westward, losing parts of Kansas City and adding more ex-urban and rural territory, which made the seat slightly more Republican-leaning. Despite these changes, Davids defeated RepublicanAmanda Adkins for the second time, winning 54.9% of the vote to Adkins's 42.8% and 2.3% for Libertarian candidate Steve Hohe.[35] This represented a 2.1% improvement over her 2020 margin.
In 2024, Davids won reelection to a fourth term by defeating Republican Prasanth Reddy by a margin of 53.4 to 42.6%.
On December 18, 2019, Davids voted to impeach PresidentDonald Trump and was the only person representing Kansas to do so.[36] In March 2020, Davids quarantined herself for possible exposure tocoronavirus. Before that, she had mostly switched her congressional office from physical to digital.[37]
Davids was named a vice-chair of the2020 Democratic National Convention.[38]
Davids voted with President Joe Biden's stated position 100% of the time in the117th Congress, according to aFiveThirtyEight analysis. This results in a Biden Plus/Minus score of +10, indicating more support for Biden's priorities than would be expected given the makeup of her district.[39]
Davids voted for theAmerica COMPETES Act of 2022, which passed on a party-line vote. The bill authorized billions of dollars of government spending on American manufacturing and scientific research in an effort to compete with China.[40] Davids added an amendment to the legislation that would include small and medium-sized manufacturers in a $500 million pilot program for producingpersonal protective equipment and medical supplies.[41]
119th Congress:
In 2019, RepresentativeCheri Bustos, then chair of theDemocratic Congressional Campaign Committee, took note of Davids, "rating her toward the top of the freshman class in terms of doing things the right way."[58]
In June 2019, to mark the50th anniversary of theStonewall riots, an event widely considered a watershed moment in the modernLGBTQ rights movement,Queerty named Davids one of thePride50 "trailblazing individuals who actively ensure society remains moving towards equality, acceptance and dignity for all queer people".[59][60] She was also named to the 2021Fast Company Queer 50 list.[61]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Sharice Davids | 23,066 | 37.3 | |
| Democratic | Brent Welder | 20,904 | 33.8 | |
| Democratic | Tom Niermann | 8,844 | 14.3 | |
| Democratic | Mike McCamon | 4,278 | 6.9 | |
| Democratic | Sylvia Williams | 2,906 | 4.7 | |
| Democratic | Jay Sidie | 1,762 | 2.9 | |
| Total votes | 61,760 | 100.0 | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Sharice Davids | 164,253 | 53.3 | |||
| Republican | Kevin Yoder (incumbent) | 136,104 | 44.2 | |||
| Libertarian | Chris Clemmons | 7,643 | 2.5 | |||
| Total votes | 343,113 | 100.0 | ||||
| Democraticgain fromRepublican | ||||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Sharice Davids (incumbent) | 212,084 | 53.5 | |
| Republican | Amanda Adkins | 173,621 | 43.8 | |
| Libertarian | Steven Hohe | 11,077 | 2.8 | |
| Total votes | 396,282 | 100.0 | ||
| Democratichold | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Sharice Davids (incumbent) | 165,527 | 54.9 | |
| Republican | Amanda Adkins | 128,839 | 42.8 | |
| Libertarian | Steve Hohe | 6,928 | 2.3 | |
| Total votes | 301,294 | 100.0 | ||
| Democratichold | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Sharice Davids (incumbent) | 209,871 | 53.4 | |
| Republican | Prasanth Reddy | 167,570 | 42.6 | |
| Libertarian | Steve Roberts | 15,892 | 4.0 | |
| Total votes | 393,333 | 100.0 | ||
| Democratichold | ||||
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromKansas's 3rd congressional district 2019–present | Incumbent |
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| Preceded by | United States representatives by seniority 199th | Succeeded by |
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