Can a Johnson County candidate be Kansas governor? These names are being floated
Kansas last elected a Johnson County Democrat to be governor over a century ago. And voters last picked a Johnson County Republican in 1975.
Will next year be different?
The 2026 Kansas governor’s race — in both parties — could feature an unusually large field, including several candidates from the state’s wealthiest and most populous county.
No Democrats have so far announced plans to run to succeed two-term Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly of Topeka. But possible names circulating among political insiders include Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes of Lenexa, Sen. Cindy Holscher of Olathe and Sen. Ethan Corson of Fairway.
On the Republican side, Secretary of State Scott Schwab of Overland Park and former county commissioner Charlotte O’Hara of Olathe have already launched campaigns. Right-wing podcaster Doug Billings of Olathe is also running. Former Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer, who lives and works in Overland Park, is also widely expected to join the race.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this number of (likely) Johnson County candidates in my lifetime,” said Sen. J.R. Claeys, a Salina Republican who managed Kris Kobach’s failed 2018 bid for governor.
The crowded field of Johnson County hopefuls doesn’t have history on its side, and Claeys said his constituents harbor the same skepticism they always have towards politicians who hail from major metropolitan areas.
“Having individuals from the more rural areas of the state representing us is important to us, and it’s unlikely to change anytime soon,” he said.
Excluding Colyer, who became governor in 2018 after the resignation of Gov. Sam Brownback, Kansas’ last chief executive from Johnson County was Robert F. Bennett of Prairie Village. He was elected in 1975 and made a point of cultivating a country image, complete with cowboy hat and boots.
“There’s this idea that, still today, Kansas is a rural state, a farming state, and that’s the narrative. Candidates want to be associated with that,” said Bob Beatty, a political science professor at Washburn University who has long studied Kansas governors.
“They don’t want to be seen as big-city politicians — even when they’re from larger cities.”
One quirk of Kansas law that can make that difficult: under state law, a candidate’s city of residence is listed next to their name on the ballot.
It’s the last thing voters see before they make their choice.
A path through Johnson County
Johnson County grew between 2010 and 2020, while most Kansas counties shrank. The county added 65,000 residents over that period — far outpacing the handful of other counties with modest growth.
“Demographics have shifted. Voter sentiment has shifted. And Johnson County is both the economic engine of the state and the political engine of the state,” said Deann Mitchell, chair of the Johnson County Democratic Party.
“No governor candidate can win without Johnson County,” said Mitchell, adding that she believes a Johnson County candidate with the right background and communication skills could break the cycle of failure.
Beatty, the political science professor, took it a step further.
“Successful Democrats, they have to rack up those big margins in Johnson County, so I would argue that in the modern era, the Johnson County Democrat could be an advantage,” he said.
Starting with high name recognition and the financial backing of a strong base, the right candidate could focus their energy on wooing the rest of the state, Beatty said.
Johnson County, long a Republican stronghold, had trended increasingly to the left over the last decade before 2024.
Although in November voters elected the county’s first Democratic sheriff in nearly a century, Republicans halted the blue shift in state-level races, flipping two key House seats to expand their legislative supermajority and ensuring it remains a fierce battleground for the foreseeable future.
Danedri Herbert, chair of the Kansas Republican Party and a Gardner resident, said it’s out of touch to write off GOP candidates from her backyard.
“I don’t buy that stigma. I mean, Johnson County’s just part of Kansas,” said Herbert, noting that many of the county’s newer residents moved there from other parts of the state.
Some leading Republican contenders also have rural roots, she emphasized.
“Secretary Schwab is from Great Bend originally and Dr. Colyer is from Hays, so these aren’t folks who only know one part of the state.”
Connecting with voters
Barbara Bollier knows the sting of defeat as a would-be statewide officeholder from Johnson County.
The Republican-turned-Democrat former lawmaker lost out in 2020 to Roger Marshall, who became the latest in a long line of Republicans from Kansas’ rural Big First District to rise to the position of U.S. senator.
Bollier said she wants to believe the paradigms that have held back candidates from Kansas’ metropolitan areas are shifting.
“I don’t think it’s true anymore, but I think in days past, there was an envy of, ‘Those people don’t really understand us. That’s the big city,’” said Bollier, who now lives in Colorado.
Former Gov. John Carlin, a Democrat from Salina who served two terms in the late 1970s and 1980s, said the Johnson County stigma “can’t be just totally ignored.”
“But times are changing,” he added.
He sees an example in U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, who quickly turned a battleground district into a relatively safe seat for Democrats after her initial election in 2018. One important move for Davids was securing a post on the prominent House Agriculture Committee. She cruised to reelection last year, despite a new district map redrawn to include more rural Republicans.
“I would be looking for, if there was a candidate out of Johnson County, I’d want one that has some kind of agriculture (background),” Carlin said. “Then you get a running mate that’s well-known in rural areas. I don’t think that’s a problem anymore. I think we’re beyond it, quite frankly. But it takes the right candidate.”
Rep. Jerry Stogsdill, a Prairie Village Democrat, said notions of Johnson County elitism can be dispelled with a clear message that centers on the needs of working Kansans.
“Right now, the leadership in the Kansas Legislature, both the House and Senate level, seem to be working totally to the benefit of the wealthiest individuals and corporations in Kansas,” Stogsdill said, deriding that brand as “Trump lite.”
Jeanna Repass, an Overland Park resident who chairs the Kansas Democratic Party, said her party is well-positioned to capitalize on backlash to unpopular Trump policies in next year’s midterm elections.
“Wherever our candidate comes from, wherever they live, it will be their responsibility to . . . get out and humanize yourself to people who don’t live in Johnson County.”
