Conservatives made waves in Kansas’ GOP primary. Is another surge coming in November?
What just happened Tuesday in Johnson County and Kansas? And what might it portend for the state, and perhaps the nation, in November and beyond?
Was this a turning point or even a small wave election?
Sure could be. A good number of conservatives absolutely washed over their more moderate state legislative opponents in Tuesday’s Republican primary election. In some cases, incumbents were carried off.
State Rep. Kellie Warren easily knocked out moderate incumbent John Skubal of Overland Park for the state’s District 11 Senate nomination, in a definitive 64% to 36% victory.
Meanwhile, Warren’s favored replacement for her District 28 House seat, Carl Turner, beat the more moderate Fred Lehman by a nearly identical 63%-37%.
But the most surprising result may be relative newcomer Jane Dirks’ lopsided 58%-42% win over incumbent Overland Park incumbent state Rep. Jan Kessinger.
Conservative wins weren’t limited to Johnson County, either. In addition to Skubal, five other moderate Republican senators appear to have lost their primary races: Bruce Givens of El Dorado, Randall Hardy of Salina, Ed Berger of Hutchinson, Mary Jo Taylor of Stafford and Dan Goddard of Parsons, though that race is in doubt.
What happened? A number of things, according to candidates and close observers.
“Kitchen-table economics was the driving force that booted so many moderate incumbents out of office,” says Dave Trabert, chief executive officer of the conservative Kansas Policy Institute.
Informed by six weeks of door-to-door campaigning, Dirks agrees with Trabert. She says residents shared their worries about high property taxes and health care costs, as well as fears about jobs and the economy and their ability to rebound from both the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting shutdown, which many of them opposed.
Opposition to abortion and Medicaid expansion also no doubt played a part in the conservative wins. Skubal and Kessinger stood apart from their Republican colleagues on those issues — especially on a proposed constitutional amendment that would have overridden a Kansas Supreme Court ruling and reinvigorated legislative authority to regulate abortion. Skubal was the lone Republican senator voting against it when it passed the Senate. Kessinger was one of four GOP House members who voted to successfully block it from House passage.
Notably, several other Republican lawmakers who also opposed the “Value Them Both” amendment — which would have simply allowed a public vote to return more abortion-regulation power to the Legislature — chose not to seek re-election. Assuming GOP wins in November, the amendment has new life.
In short, the unborn had a good day Tuesday.
But interestingly, Dirks reports that when she asked residents what concerned them the most, some said the unrest and rioting elsewhere in the nation.
“That came up a lot,” she said. “Safety is in the forefront of everybody’s minds.”
GOP primary results don’t bode well for Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Barbara Bollier of Mission Hills, on two counts: First, because U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall easily bested former Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who Democrats saw as a much easier target for Bollier in November. And second, because of turnout: Republicans cast more than 390,000 votes in the race Tuesday, despite the pandemic, well surpassing the 2016 Senate race total of some 290,000.
Could it be that abortion and angst have awakened a sleeping giant that is the Kansas Republican? And if so, will it be part of a national conservative reawakening in the general election?
I suspect so, especially set against the continued upheaval in Portland, Seattle and other major U.S. cities that now appears to be more about unfocused anger and anarchism than legitimate racial justice grievances.
In that sense, I like conservatives’ chances much more than I did before Tuesday. It’s easier to overrun a feckless city government than it is to overwhelm millions of motivated voters at the polls.
Was this a wave election Tuesday? It’s too soon to say. But it was at least a ripple. And that’s how waves get their start.
