Category: Election 2022

Kobach prevails in GOP attorney general race; treasurer campaign very, very close

Schwab fends off challenge and two state school board members benched

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Former Secretary of State Kris Kobach sidestepped money and influence of Republican powerbrokers to capture the party’s nomination for attorney general in a showdown with Sen. Kellie Warren and former federal prosecutor Tony Mattivi.

Kobach, of the historic territorial town Lecompton, served two terms as secretary of state before experiencing campaign hiccups in a 2018 loss for governor and the 2020 defeat for U.S. Senate. He rebounded Tuesday in the open primary for attorney general on strength of his significant name recognition and the loyalty of conservatives.

Warren was the choice of the Kansas Chamber, Kansans for Life, Kansas State Rifle Association, Kansas Livestock Association as well as former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall. In 2021, the Kansas Chamber’s president said he was concerned Kobach was incapable of effectively representing Kansas businesses and individuals in court.

“The establishment was against me from the moment I got in the race,” Kobach said. “Victory means I’ll be able to move forward with my plan to sue Joe Biden on multiple issues, when I think he’s violated the constitution or federal statute.”

Warren, of Leawood, congratulated Kobach and expressed gratitude to people who devoted time, talent and money to her campaign. During the primary, she repeatedly asserted Kobach was a risky choice because he could again win a GOP primary only to lose again in the general election.

“We’ve made many great friends in this campaign and I’ve been honored to have the support of people across all walks of life,” she said.

‘Embarrass our state’

The third wheel in the Republican primary campaign for attorney general was Tony Mattivi, a former federal prosecutor from Topeka who received 20% of the primary vote. In an election day appeal, Mattivi said he was the only GOP candidate in the race who wouldn’t “embarrass our state” as attorney general.

Some were quick on social media to blame Mattivi for Warren’s second-place finish because a fraction of Mattivi’s 91,400 votes would have made a difference when added to Warren’s 175,555 vote total. Unofficial results indicated Kobach brought in 195,701 votes. Put another way, Kobach netted 42% to Warren’s 38%.

Chris Mann, a former prosecutor and police officer from Lawrence who won the Democratic Party’s nomination for attorney general, said Kobach was getting ahead of himself.

“Kansans will have a clear choice for attorney general this fall, between a politician and a public servant,” Mann said. “The stakes are too high to entrust the top law enforcement office in Kansas to a politician. Violent crime has been on the rise for a decade, Kansans are being preyed upon by corporations and prescription drug companies, and at every turn politics threatens to distract and disrupt the priorities of the attorney general.”

The job of attorney general is up for grabs because Derek Schmidt, the Republican currently occupying that job, won the GOP nomination for governor. He will compete against Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, independent candidate Dennis Pyle and Libertarian Seth Cordell in November.

Kelly received 259,306 votes in her Democratic primary race against Richard Karnowski, who landed a mere 17,077 votes. It meant 94% of those partisan voters blackened the oval next to Kelly’s name. Schmidt received more votes than Kelly in the primary, but a smaller percentage of the overall GOP ballots cast. Schmidt’s total was 363,546, or 81% compared to candidate Arlynn Briggs’ 87,431 or 19%. During the campaign, Briggs gained attention for being arrested on a threat charge.

Johnson v. Tyson

Republicans Steven Johnson and Caryn Tyson entered the GOP campaign for state treasurer with similar backgrounds. He’s a farmer from Assaria in central Kansas and she’s a farmer from Parker near the Missouri border.

Both served since 2011 in the Legislature, and both had a prominent role in development of state tax policy. A dispute about their work and votes on tax issues mushroomed in final days of an otherwise sleepy campaign that was periodically punctuated by Johnson’s colorful campaign ads.

When votes were tallied after midnight, they both had 50% of 426,669 Republican primary votes cast. More precisely, Johnson had 213,660 to Tyson’s 212,882 — a gap of less than 800. But there remain uncounted votes, including provisional and mail-in ballots.

Not even Secretary of State Scott Schwab, the state’s top election official, anticipated heavy turnout despite keen voter interest in a proposed abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution.

Schwab theorized 36% or 644,000 of the state’s 1.9 million registered voters would participate in the primary. Instead, 47% or 908,000 Republican, Democratic, Libertarian or unaffiliated voters showed up to determine fate of the amendment.

The vote on the amendment wasn’t close: 59% opposed the idea of changing the state constitution to eliminate the right of a woman to receive an abortion.

Voter fraud?

Schwab, a Republican seeking election to a second term as secretary of state, survived a stiff challenge from Mike Brown, a former Johnson County Commission member.

The unofficial results released from Schwab’s office showed the incumbent with 239,306 or 55% of the vote to Brown’s 194,061 or 45% of the vote. Rarely do primary challengers come within striking distance of a Kansas Republican incumbent.

Brown’s campaign benefitted from heavy spending by the Election Integrity PAC. It poured mailers into Kansas households accusing Schwab of failing to secure elections in Kansas. Indeed, Schwab insisted they were free and fair.

The political action committee said Kansans couldn’t trust “Voter Fraud Schwab” to secure elections and that he was guilty of dismissing President Donald Trump’s apprehension about mail-in ballots and rejecting unsubstantiated theories fraud occurred in 2020.

Brown promised if elected to require a photograph identification card to vote by mail, ban the use of “unsecure” ballot drop boxes, verify the accuracy of voter registration lists and “eliminate voter fraud and mismanagement of our elections.”

U.S. Senate candidate Mark Holland of Kansas City, Kansas, won a six-person Democratic primary with 38% of the vote to earn the right to oppose U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, who prevailed with 81% of the GOP primary vote.

Meanwhile, two of three Republican members of the Kansas State Board of Education were defeated by primary challengers.

Garden City incumbent board member Jean Clifford lost the District 5 primary by 5,000 votes to Hays resident Cathy Hopkins, who had lost a campaign last year for Hays School Board. Incumbent Ben Jones of Sterling lost by 9,000 votes the District 7 primary to Dennis Hershberger, a Hutchinson resident and chairman of the Reno County Republican Party.

Board member Jim Porter, of Fredonia, was able to hold off by more than 11,000 votes the primary challenge by Luke Aichele, a McPherson barber who defied COVID-19 protocols and accused health officials of acting like Nazis distributing propoganda.

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/08/03/kobach-prevails-in-gop-attorney-general-race-treasurer-campaign-very-very-close/

Kansas voters defeat abortion amendment in unexpected landslide

by Sherman Smith and Lily O’Shea Becker, Kansas Reflector

Overland Park — Kansas voters in a landslide Tuesday defeated a constitutional amendment that would have stripped residents of abortion rights, defying polling and political observers who expected a close result.

The ballot measure was failing by a 62-38 margin at 9:45 p.m. as voters responded to an intense and costly campaign marked by dubious claims by amendment supporters and the unraveling of protections by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The question before voters, in the form of a confusingly worded constitutional amendment, was whether to end the right to abortion in Kansas by voting “yes” or preserve the right by voting “no.”

The outcome could have far-reaching political implications, with a governor’s race and congressional seats on the ballot in November. It also means reproductive health care will remain available in a state where six girls younger than 14 were among nearly 8,000 patients who received an abortion last year.

“I’ve always maintained that a woman’s reproductive health care decisions should be between her and her physician,” said Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, in a statement to campaign supporters. “I’m proud to say that Kansans stood up for our fundamental rights today.”

The proposed constitutional amendment is a reaction to a 2019 decision by the Kansas Supreme Court, which struck down a state law banning a common second-term abortion procedure. The court determined the right to bodily autonomy in the state constitution’s Bill of Rights includes the decision to terminate a pregnancy.

That meant abortion remained legal in Kansas when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing each state to determine its own rules for reproductive health care. Kansas attracted national attention as the first state to vote on abortion rights in the post-Roe world.

“You know,” said Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat, “you go back to William Allen White: ‘If something is going to happen, it’s going to happen in Kansas first.’ A lot of friends from across the country are like, ‘Why is this on a primary ballot?’ So I think they’re paying attention to really some cynical tactics that the other side tried to play to their advantage.”

Voters showed up in unforeseen numbers in urban areas of the state, while rural areas underperformed compared to turnout in the presidential race two years ago. Forecasters with Cook Political Report and FiveThirtyEight predicted early in the evening that the amendment would fail, possibly by a double-digit margin.

Passage of the constitutional amendment would have nullified the Kansas Supreme Court ruling and given the Legislature the authority to pass any kind of abortion restriction, without exceptions for rape, incest or a patient’s health. The amendment’s defeat means abortion will continue to be legal — and heavily regulated — in Kansas.

Supporters and opponents of the amendment spent millions of dollars in campaigns to educate and influence voters.

The so-called Value Them Both Coalition refused to say whether it would support a ban on abortion if the amendment passes, routinely denouncing claims that the amendment equated to an abortion ban. But audio obtained by Kansas Reflector revealed that supporters of the abortion amendment already had legislation in mind that would ban abortion from conception until birth, without exceptions.

The Value Them Both Coalition denied Kansas Reflector entry to its election night watch party because the organization doesn’t approve of Reflector news stories.

On Monday, Democrats received a text message — eventually connected to former Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp — that inaccurately told them to vote “yes” to preserve reproductive health rights.

Opponents of the amendment have complained about its misleading language. A line-by-line analysis by the Guardian concluded “the ballot language sows confusion in an effort to push people to vote ‘yes.’ ”

The amendment claims to ban government-funded abortion, which is already banned under state law, and suggests the Legislature “could” provide exceptions in state law for rape, incest or the life of a mother — even though the amendment doesn’t actually require those exceptions.

Annual reporting from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment shows that a typical abortion in Kansas involves a woman of color between the ages of 20 and 30 who lives in Kansas or Missouri and is unmarried, already has at least one child, has never had an abortion before, is less than nine weeks from gestation and uses the drug mifepristone to terminate her pregnancy.

Because of existing restrictions, which remain in place even if the amendment fails, she has received state-ordered counseling designed to discourage her from having an abortion, waited at least 24 hours, looked at an ultrasound image and pays for the procedure out of her own pocket.

No abortions occurred outside of 22 weeks, the legal threshold except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger.

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/08/02/kansas-voters-defeat-abortion-amendment-in-unexpected-landslide/

All local Wyandotte County precincts reporting unofficial preliminary leaders in tonight’s primary election

With all 148 Wyandotte County precincts reporting, the preliminary unofficial leaders of the primary election have been named.

Full official results have not yet been announced, as mail ballots have until Friday to reach the election office to be counted. Then results must be certified at a later date.

The leader of the Democratic nomination for 33rd District, Kansas House, is Bill Hutton with 44 percent of the vote. He had 1,067 votes to Taylor R. Dean’s 921 votes and Mathew Reinhold’s 464 votes.

Mike Thompson received 91 percent of the vote for the Republican nomination for the 33rd District. He had 1,952 votes to Clifton Boje’s 201 votes.

In the 35th District, Kansas House, Democrat Marvin S. Robinson II received 1,390 votes, for 59 percent, to Nelson R. Gabriel’s 976 votes, for 41 percent.

For the Republican nomination for 35th District, House, Sam Stillwell led with 266 votes, or 69 percent, over John H. Koerner, who had 120 votes or 31 percent.

The Kansas House of Representatives, 36th District, Democratic nomination saw Lynn Melton with 2,647 votes, or 67 percent, to JoAnne Gilstrap’s 1,308 votes, or 33 percent.

Of the Republicans running for the 36th District, House seat, Kevin Braun received 78 percent of the vote with 1,450 votes to Mark David Snelson’s 22 percent of the vote, with 408 votes.

In the 37th District, Kansas House, Democratic nomination, the leader was Melissa Oropeza with 1,203 votes, or 49 percent, to Faith Rivera’s 923 votes, or 38 percent. Coming in third was incumbent Rep. Aaron Coleman with 13 percent or 321 votes.

For Wyandotte County District Court Judge, incumbent Tony Martinez led with 72 percent of the vote, or 12,397 votes, to David Patryzkont’s 28 percent, or 4,877 votes.

Candice Alcaraz was the leader for Wyandotte County District Court judge in Division 12, with 11,796 votes or 69 percent to incumbent Judge Wesley Griffin’s 5,361 votes, or 31 percent.

The constitutional amendment on abortion in Kansas saw 74 percent of Wyandotte County voters, or 22,767 “no” votes to 26 percent or 7,964 “yes” votes.

Statewide, 62 percent of the voters, 398,253, cast a “no” vote with 38 percent, or 239,834, voting “yes.” There are still many statewide votes yet to be reported.

Mark R. Holland, the former mayor of Kansas City, Kansas, leads in the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He had 41 percent of the vote statewide, with 82,951 votes, to Patrick Wiesner’s 19 percent, Paul Buskirk’s 19 percent; Mike Andra’s 10 percent, Robert Klingenberg’s 7 percent and Michael Soetaert’s 3 percent.

Incumbent Sen. Jerry Moran led with 79 percent of the vote in the Republican contest with 241,250 votes to Joan Farr’s 62,917.

In the Republican nomination for U.S. Representative, 3rd District, Amanda Adkins led with 77 percent of the vote over John McCaughrean, who had 23 percent.

Gov. Laura Kelly led with 95 percent of the vote statewide in the Democratic contest for governor. Richard Karnowski had 5 percent of the vote.

For the Republican nomination for governor, Derek Schmidt had 80 percent of the vote to Arlyn Briggs’ 20 percent.

For the Republican nomination for secretary of state incumbent Scott Schwab led with 57 percent of the vote to Mike Brown’s 43 percent.

In the close contest for the Republican nomination for attorney general, Kris Kobach had 40 percent of the vote to Kellie Warren’s 39 percent, with Tony Mattivi receiving 21 percent.

In a close state treasurer contest, Republican Caryn Tyson had 51 percent of the vote to Steven Johnson’s 49 percent.

House Democratic Leader Tom Sawyer issued a statement on the constitutional amendment on abortion:


“Kansas voters have spoken: They soundly reject this undemocratic constitutional amendment — placed on the August amendment to disenfranchise voters, bolstered by a campaign filled with disinformation and dark money — without hesitation. Voters from all parties, in all corners of the state mobilized in mass to oppose this effort.

Today’s fight is not yet over, though. We must break the supermajority in November to sustain this win, or else this amendment will have the votes to go on the ballot again and again until it finally passes. Kansans must support Vote No candidates on November 8.

The state motto rings true more than ever tonight. Ad Astra per aspera; to the stars through difficulties.”