TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — For decades in Kansas, a delicate political balance kept the state on a moderate path even as other states in the region turned to the right. Conservatives could cut taxes in flush times. But Democrats and centrist Republicans still freed up money for highways and schools, and a loose coalition worked out compromises.

Those days, it seems, have passed.

And the change has come more swiftly than in other places that were part of last fall's conservative electoral wave that put new Republican governors or stronger Republican legislatures in charge in half of the nation's statehouses.