Race for top Jackson County office opens again. Here’s who is in, and who is out
The top seat in Jackson County government is up for grabs this November — and the race just reopened to new candidates for five days.
Jackson County voters will select a new county executive in November to serve a four-year term starting in January 2027. Candidate filings for the seat, along with seats on the Jackson County Legislature and several other local offices, closed March 31.
However, the withdrawal of the incumbent candidate for county executive from the race — Interim County Executive Phil LeVota, who announced Friday he would not seek re-election — triggered a five-day reopening period under state law in which additional people can file to run for county executive.
A similar temporary filing period has reopened for one of the nine seats on the Jackson County Legislature. Republican candidates can file for the first district at-large seat, representing all county residents, after Mackenzie Woods — the only Republican candidate as of the prior deadline — withdrew from consideration this month.
New candidates for both seats can file starting Wednesday, April 29, at 8:00 a.m. and ending at 5:00 p.m.
Here’s who’s still in the running for Jackson County executive, and what both voters and new candidates can expect.
Who’s in the running
Eight candidates were initially in the running for Jackson County executive. Heading into Wednesday’s expanded filing deadline, the field has narrowed to six.
Candidates are required to be registered Jackson County voters who have lived in the county for at least three years prior to the upcoming November election. Under the county charter, the county executive’s responsibilities include overseeing the county’s municipal departments, correcting errors in tax assessments, executing certain contracts, upholding the county charter and representing the county in general.
The county executive also appoints people to fill vacancies throughout county government, attends Legislature meetings as a non-voting member, investigates internal issues and transfers staffers between departments. The position comes with a salary of about $150,000 annually.
Bill Baird, Stacy Lake, Ryan Meyer, Holmes Osborn, Alan Rohlfing and Erik Steffen remain in the race and will join any new candidates who choose to file in the coming days. Rohlfing, who has an extensive military background, is the sole Republican candidate for county executive.
Lake, an attorney, and Meyer, a marketing consultant, have both run for countywide offices in the past. Lake ran against Frank White Jr. for County Executive in 2022, nearly unseating him in the primary but ultimately losing with 47% of the vote. The same year, Meyer made an unsuccessful bid for the Legislature seat representing Jackson County’s First District.
Lee’s Summit Mayor Bill Baird is the only candidate in the running who currently holds another political office. Baird served for two terms, the second of which expires at the end of April, and was not eligible to run for a third term under city law.
Baird, a commercial real estate broker, previously told The Star that he’s running to “bring respect, professionalism, and competence back to county government.” Leading up to the original filing deadline, Baird publicly clashed with LeVota, challenging the interim county executive’s assertion that the race lacked qualified candidates.
A pair of Democrats without a significant political history round out the field. Osborne, a financial analyst, currently sits on the Board of Trustees for the Metropolitan Community College system. Steffen works in cybersecurity as an account manager.
Former candidates
Two current Jackson County leaders briefly campaigned for a full-time seat as county executive before exiting the race in recent days, leaving a field bereft of current legislators.
LeVota, an attorney who has been serving as county executive in an interim capacity since October, had been the final candidate, filing minutes before the deadline. LeVota had previously pledged not to run for a full term as executive, signing a public-facing — if not legally binding — “affidavit of non-candidacy.”
LeVota said Friday that he left the race because he felt the demands of the county executive role day-to-day were too intense to allow him time to properly campaign. He also cited campaign fundraising and a distaste for the interpersonal “unpleasantness” of county politics. LeVota will continue to serve as interim county executive through January 1, 2027. He was appointed from a field of a dozen candidates to finish out the term of former County Executive Frank White, who was recalled by a landslide vote in September.
Jackson County Legislator DaRon McGee, who joined the legislature in 2022, was initially the first candidate to file for the upcoming county executive term. He was also the first to drop out of the race, announcing his recusal early last week.
McGee, who represents the fourth district and twice chaired the Legislature, similarly filed for consideration for the interim county executive role last year but dropped out before appointment hearings began. McGee said that though his “dedication to the people of Jackson County has not changed,” he’s hoping to spend more time with family.
McGee was previously the president of the Hickman Mills School Board and served two terms in the Missouri House of Representatives, representing south Kansas City. He resigned from the latter in 2019 following an investigation by the Missouri House Ethics Committee over allegations of sexual harassment against a former staffer.
Both LeVota and McGee ran as Democrats.
