Bollier and Marshall square off in Wichita showdown as Senate race nears finish
Kansas Democratic Senate nominee Barbara Bollier turned in a rocky performance Thursday in her final debate showdown with Republican Congressman Roger Marshall ahead of the November 3 election.
Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932, but Bollier is within striking distance with less than two weeks left to campaign.
She’s trounced Marshall in fundraising and trailed him by only 4 points in a New York Times poll released hours before the debate.
But Bollier, a state senator from Mission Hills, lost her train of thought midway through answers multiple times during the televised debate, co-hosted by Wichita TV station KWCH, Topeka station WIBW and Wichita public radio station KMUW.
Bollier said she opposed former Vice President Joe Biden’s plan to raise taxes on people making more than $400,000 and would vote against it if both Democrats are elected November 3.
“I see things in the Trump tax plan that I like,” Bollier said before trailing off. “I’m blanking.”
Bollier then recovered her train of thought and said emphatically, “Standard deduction! Doubling the standard deduction. Thank you. But I didn’t like that it added a trillion dollars to our deficit, so I think we need to get together and have taxes that are fair to all, especially for our middle class.”
Guns and hospitals
Bollier was more prepared for a question on guns after a barrage of GOP attacks against her on the issue.
“I have always stood for the Second Amendment and support it vigorously, but we have problems with gun violence in this country. It is a public health crisis, so what can we do? Let’s start with background checks,” Bollier said.
“You will see a misleading ad that says I would want to take all guns away. I support the second amendment,” Bollier said,
She was referencing ads from Marshall’s campaign and GOP groups that have attacked her based on comments she made during an Olathe campaign event in which she talked positively about gun regulations in Australia, where her daughter lives.
Marshall encouraged viewers to go to his social media pages to view the clip.
“My opponent calls confiscating weapons an amazing thing. An amazing thing,” he said, noting Bollier’s support for increased gun control as a member of the Legislature.
“Listen, the Second Amendment is what protects the First Amendment. I had a young lady grab me the other day in her 30s and said, ‘I don’t own a gun. I’m never going to own a gun. Why is this important to me?’ Look, this is the flagship amendment that protects the rest of them,” Marshall said.
Marshall tried to rebut attacks related to his role in founding Great Bend Regional Hospital, a physician-owned hospital. Following the hospital’s 2009 expansion another hospital in the community ended its inpatient services, which some at the time blamed on Marshall’s hospital.
The decade-old controversy has been the subject of Democratic attack ads and, according to Marshall, has been a topic people have posted about on his Facebook page.
“We built a quality hospital, so proud of it. So proud of all the doctors and the nurses and the community that made it one of the best hospitals in Great Bend,” Marshall said.
“It’s all lies and more lies, but that’s the way this game is played.”
The Star published an investigation this week about Marshall’s role in pushing to loosen restrictions on physician-owned hospitals as a member of Congress while his wife remains invested in the real estate of two physician-owned hospitals in Texas.
COVID-19 pandemic
When the debate turned to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bollier accused Marshall of downplaying the severity of the virus and campaigning around the state without a mask. Marshall has worn a mask at events but has also been spotted without one, too.
Marshall said he had spoken out early about the virus’s dangers and said the efforts of Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump had saved Kansas jobs. Congress has passed multiple rounds of virus relief, but Republican leaders are at odds with Democrats over another aid package even as Trump has said he wants a bill as Election Day approaches.
“What we have to be careful of here is the Democrats have promised they will shut down the economy if there’s any uptick,” Marshall said.
Marshall charged that Kansans “know what’s best for ourselves” and repeated an unsubstantiated claim that “shutting down the economy has killed more people than the virus ever will.”
He made a similar claim during a September debate. After that debate, his campaign sent an article from a Texas news station exploring the topic of whether the pandemic is leading to an increase in suicides.
The article links to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that says elevated levels of suicidal ideation were reported by U.S. adults in June of this year. But neither CDC report nor the article claim the rate of suicides will surpass the death toll from the virus.
“We have a U.S. Senate candidate saying not to worry as deaths go up,” Bollier said.
The pandemic continues to sweep across Kansas. Nearly 1,500 new cases were reported between Monday and Wednesday. As of Wednesday, 952 people have died.
A report published Tuesday by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University said nationally at least 130,000 COVID-19 deaths could have been avoided with earlier action and better federal coordination and leadership.
This story was originally published October 22, 2020 at 9:00 PM.
