Young Republicans’ ties to Kansas politicians scrutinized after racist text scandal
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kansas Young Republicans officers sent racist, violent messages in encrypted chats.
- State GOP officials disbanded the group and fired staff after Politico exposed texts.
- Scandal prompts scrutiny of Young Republicans as a pipeline to Topeka leadership.
For decades, ambitious conservatives seeking to connect with their peers and climb the ladder in Topeka have joined the Kansas Young Republicans.
New revelations tying the group’s top officers to a trove of racist, violent and bigoted messages present uncomfortable questions about who has been given opportunities to rise within the ranks of the organization and beyond in Kansas politics.
In May, Attorney General Kris Kobach praised his then-employee William Hendrix and rewarded him with a $500 bonus.
“This monetary award recognizes you went above and beyond your duties as Communications Specialist to achieve the legislative goals set by me, the Attorney General,” Kobach wrote in a May 8 letter obtained by The Star through an open records request for Hendrix’s personnel file.
It was Hendrix’s private communications, chronicled in a Politico exposé, that cost him the job in Kobach’s office, where he had worked since December 2022.
Hendrix, vice chair of the Kansas Young Republicans, reportedly typed variations of the N-word more than a dozen times in encrypted Telegram messages to other young GOP leaders from around the country between January and August.
The other Kansas Young Republicans officer in the group chat, chair Alex Dwyer, reportedly reacted with a heart emoji to a message about killing political opponents in a gas chamber. He also invoked the common white supremacist dog whistle “1488,” a combination of numbers referencing a slogan about preserving the white race and an abbreviation for “Heil Hitler.”
The condemnation from Kansas Republican officials was swift and unequivocal.
Kobach called the comments in the chat “inexcusable” and fired Hendrix last Thursday ahead of the Politico article’s release. Kansas GOP Chair Danedri Herbert, who also works as a spokesperson in Kobach’s office, disbanded the Young Republicans group on Tuesday.
“Their comments do not reflect the beliefs of Republicans and certainly not of Kansas Republicans at large, who elected a Black chair a few months ago,” Herbert said in a statement.
Contacted by phone Friday, she declined to say more other than that Hendrix and Dwyer have resigned from all roles within the state GOP.
Within Kansas politics, the scandal has raised serious questions about the connections between top officials and the staffers associated with the hateful messages. One prominent Democrat called the embattled group a key “pipeline to leadership” in the state’s capital city.
‘Categorically deny any association’
Even as Vice President J.D. Vance has dismissed bipartisan outrage over the leaked messages as “pearl clutching,” Kansas officials have gone out of their way to distance themselves from the state’s former top Young Republicans.
On Tuesday afternoon, as an image circulated of Senate President Ty Masterson posing for a small group photo that included Hendrix and Dwyer at his campaign kickoff event, the gubernatorial hopeful took to social media to “categorically deny any association” with them.
“Neither is currently, nor has ever been, on staff or volunteered for my campaign for governor,” Masterson said. “Anyone suggesting otherwise is either lying or misinformed.
“I understand that my political opponents have been shopping around a photo, with deceitful intentions, in efforts to disparage me,” he added. “Many people requested photos with me at my campaign announcement event, but this in no way indicates any association with them.”
Hendrix and Dwyer were two of the five officers who sat on the now-defunct Kansas Young Republicans executive board. Another board member, National Committeeman Garrett Henson, has worked in Masterson’s office as a deputy communications director and legislative liaison since September, according to an online bio and Henson’s now-deleted LinkedIn page.
Henson, who was not reported to be a member of the Telegram group chat, is also listed as treasurer for Holton Republican Sen. Craig Bowser’s re-election campaign. Records show Henson introduced multiple bills on behalf of the attorney general’s office during the 2025 legislative session.
Henson did not respond to multiple phone calls or an email request for comment. Neither did Bowser.
Masterson vouched for Henson’s character and that of his other employees.
“I have complete confidence in the integrity of my staff. Period,” Masterson said in a statement.
“As I said Tuesday, violent and hateful rhetoric cannot be tolerated, as it is counter to Christ’s message that life is valuable and that we are all equal in God’s eyes,” he added. “Individuals who harbor those vile views should not be part of our party, and I think our party’s unified response condemning those remarks demonstrates that our party believes that we are one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.“
‘Pipeline to leadership’
State Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat who’s also running for governor, said officials should be careful who they empower with a job offer.
“Kansas Young Republicans has essentially been a pipeline to leadership to Topeka, so it’s a huge concern … if this is a prevailing thought — which it seems (to be) in terms of hatred, vile comments — then I think there has to be absolute scrutiny applied to those positions when someone is being hired,” Holscher said during a virtual press conference with faith leaders Thursday responding to the scandal.
“The rot starts at the top” of the Kansas GOP, Holscher said.
“And it goes farther than just this messaging,” she added. “We see it in actions. And now we are seeing it too with proposed redistricting, an effort to oust the only non-white member of Congress from Kansas.”
Masterson said Holscher’s assessment of the GOP smacks of hypocrisy.
“Cindy Holscher lives in a glass house, given much of the extreme rhetoric and behavior of much of her own left-wing base,” Masterson said.
Rabbi Mark Levin of Congregation Beth Torah in Overland Park said during the event that over the last decade of his political influence, President Donald Trump has consistently validated bigotry and making fun of people.
“You look to the fringe of society for such evil thoughts,” Levin said of the opinions expressed in the Young Republicans group chat. “Yet when it starts coming from the dominant part of society, from currently the dominant political party, you know, it’s like getting hit upside the head with lumber. Suddenly, it’s coming from everywhere.”
Details emerge about members
Members of the Young Republicans Telegram chat called Black people “monkeys” and “the watermelon people,” characterized rape as “epic,” and joked about driving their enemies to commit suicide.
While hosting “The Charlie Kirk Show” on Wednesday, Vance downplayed the virulent remarks in the chat as “young boys” making misguided jokes.
“The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys,” Vance said. “They tell edgy, offensive jokes. That’s what kids do. And I really don’t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke — telling a very offensive, stupid joke — is cause to ruin their lives.”
Young Republicans, which bills itself as the oldest political youth organization in the U.S., accepts members between the ages of 18 and 40. Dwyer and Hendrix are 29 and 24, respectively.
In 2021, at age 20, Hendrix became one of the youngest candidates to ever run for Topeka City Council, launching a bid before he began his schooling at Washburn Institute of Technology, according to The Topeka Capital-Journal.
Dwyer, a University of Kansas graduate, founded the school’s chapter of Turning Point USA in 2016.
“At KU, we did have a conservative group already. It was called the College Republicans,” Dwyer told The Star in a 2019 interview. “However, I felt that they weren’t doing an adequate enough job at representing conservative students within the university.
“I felt that whenever there were campus interviews going on, whenever there were stories, events happening, I didn’t feel that conservatives were represented well enough, and I wanted to give a platform for conservatives to express their views, to engage in dialogue, have events, meet other conservative students, and sort of grow into a community of sorts,” Dwyer said.
He didn’t want to get involved in the “back-and-forth mudslinging competitions” or “try and start contentious dialogue,” he said.
A 2022 Kansas City Defender story about backlash over a KU course called “Angry White Male Studies” quoted Dwyer as saying, “Imagine if a certain word was changed? Outrage would be everywhere,” apparently suggesting a class examining anger in other races would be considered unacceptable.
‘Stoking that fire’
In an interview on Thursday, Jonathon Westbrook, president of the Kansas Black Republican Council, said the scandal is deeply demoralizing and counterproductive.
“How are we able to encourage and promote and recruit conservatives, Republicans, or even those that are on the fence when you have offenses like this? I mean, this is truly an offense,” Westbrook said. “It’s sickening. It’s disheartening.”
Westbrook, who works as a sergeant in the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department, said it’s unfair for people to lay blame at the feet of Donald Trump, adding that “both sides are guilty of stoking that fire.”
“In the political realm, everyone’s just trying to one-up each other in shock values and clickbaits and what have you,” Westbrook said.
He said he understands where Vance is coming from in his critique of the response to the leaked messages. It’s important to hold the Young Republicans accountable for their words without giving up on them as people, he said.
“I totally get it. Young and dumb,” Westbrook said. “But hey, your young and dumbness got exposed, and so own it, apologize for it, keep it moving.”
Still, he said, it’s hard not to be shaken by the hateful tone of the words they used so casually when they thought their messages would remain private.
“There are some elements that I take personal, because I’m just like, ‘Here I am out here recruiting and trying to spread a message of hope and big tent, and you’ve got folks in the tent throwing rocks and stones and being destructive in their dialogue,” Westbrook said.
The Star’s Kacen Bayless contributed reporting.
This story was originally published October 17, 2025 at 1:44 PM.
