Chris Mann ousts state Attorney General Kris Kobach
Adam Hamilton’s election to the U.S. Senate gave Kansas Democrats their first Senate victory in the state since 1932, and Chris Mann ousted state Attorney General Kris Kobach, the Associated Press reported. Both wins landed on the same statewide ballot that kept the governor’s office in Democratic hands.
Hamilton serves as pastor of the nation’s largest United Methodist church. The same political forces that helped elect Democrat Cindy Holscher as Kansas’ next governor also carried Hamilton into the Senate.
Mann’s victory removed Kobach, a champion of strict voter ID laws who served as vice chair of President Donald Trump’s commission on election fraud in 2017.
Holscher’s governor’s race win extended that national picture: Democrats had already secured a majority of U.S. governorships for the first time in two decades before the Associated Press called the narrow Kansas race on Thursday. Holscher, a state senator, declared victory following Tuesday’s midterm elections and will succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.
The result also overcame the money behind Masterson, president of the GOP-controlled state Senate. The Republican Governors Association poured $19 million into television and digital advertising, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, and attacked Holscher as an extreme liberal. Fall fundraising between the two candidates was comparable, but Republicans outspent Democrats more than 3-to-1 overall in that race.
Masterson had entered the fall campaign with reasons for optimism. He emerged from a contentious primary in August with Trump’s endorsement, and for 60 years, whenever a Kansas governor has retired or been term-limited, the other party’s nominee has won the next election.
Before the race was called, Masterson promised to keep fighting to cut property taxes — his biggest campaign promise — and for safer communities and better schools. He remains the Kansas Senate’s top Republican leader.
Kelly was not an early backer of Holscher’s bid. The outgoing governor had earlier supported a different Democratic state senator and once suggested that Holscher could be too liberal to win in November. Kelly later endorsed Holscher and produced a video for her — though not until after she recorded a spot for Iowa’s new governor-elect, Rob Sand.
Holscher made a state moratorium on building new data centers for artificial intelligence a cornerstone of her campaign. She said people want limits on their energy and water use and want to make sure the centers create local jobs.
“It cuts across party lines,” she told reporters in Topeka late in the race. “The people are asking for reasonable things.”
In a video posted online Tuesday, two days before the race was called, Holscher said: “Kansans have sent a clear message that they want to keep our state moving forward.” “The work of preparing to lead has already begun,” she said.
A former manager for Sprint Corp., Holscher lives in the Kansas City, Kansas, suburbs in Johnson County that boomed after World War II. It is the state’s most populous county, home to 23% of the state’s 2 million voters.
Johnson County has become increasingly Democratic since Trump’s first run for president in 2016. Holscher won a Kansas House seat that year and was elected to the Kansas Senate in 2020.
Holscher captured more than 60% of Johnson County’s vote, offsetting Masterson’s big margins in solidly GOP rural areas. Hamilton, who also lives in Johnson County, took the same path to victory.