According to this, some Republicans politicians in Kansas are switching to the Democratic Party in the hope of finding a political group that has moderate views. In the long and unusual history of the two-party system in the United States a core truth is that each party has to be centered close to the middle. In order to compete in every state and on a national level each of the two parties must comprise multiple factions. A party that becomes too leftist or too far rightist will shed loyalists to the other party.