Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden faces GOP challenger amid anger over election probe

Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden will run for reelection, triggering a political reckoning over his controversial leadership and long-running investigation into the 2020 election that has allowed baseless conspiracy theories to fester while producing no criminal charges.

Hayden, a Republican seeking a third term, faces at least one primary opponent after Doug Bedford, a former Johnson County undersheriff and former Navy SEAL, publicly launched his campaign last week. Local Democrats have also signaled that party members are weighing a campaign.

The contested election next year will offer Johnson County voters their first real opportunity to render a verdict on Hayden’s conduct in office, after he ran unopposed in 2020. He was first elected sheriff in 2016 and has previously served as a county commissioner.

Hayden, who has spent 28 years in the sheriff’s office, has conducted the election investigation for more than two years without making specific allegations or offering evidence, effectively casting a cloud of suspicion over county elections that critics say harms civic trust. At the same time, he has repeatedly appeared at hard-right gatherings to promote the inquiry.

“Sheriff Hayden is going to file for reelection for Johnson County Sheriff, and he has no other comment at this time,” Johnson County Sgt. Jesse Valdez, a spokesperson for Hayden, said in a statement. Hayden didn’t respond to a voicemail left on a personal phone number.

Bedford, who worked in the sheriff’s office from 1997 to 2021, hasn’t criticized Hayden by name and in an interview said his focus isn’t on what the current administration has done or hasn’t done. Still, he outlined a vision of how he would lead the office that implicitly drew a sharp contrast with Hayden and stressed the need to “re-instill” a mindset of teamwork and the necessity of building trust in law enforcement.

“I would do my best to stay out of partisan politics. The sheriff – you need to be everybody’s sheriff and that’s how I lead,” Bedford said.

Asked about the elections investigation, Bedford didn’t directly criticize the probe, saying that any crime that takes place should be investigated “to the fullest” and that he hadn’t seen the evidence the sheriff’s office has since he no longer works in the agency.

But he also said Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican, has found no evidence of widespread fraud and that Johnson County Prosecutor Steve Howe, also a Republican, has said no cases have been given to him (Howe was sent one election intimidation case but declined to prosecute citing a lack of evidence).

“Both of those gentlemen, Steve Howe and Scott Schwab, they haven’t seen anything, they don’t know of anything. Until I see something different, that’s what I’m going to have to go with,” Bedford said.

No Democrats have yet entered the race, but potential candidates appear to be taking a close look after no Democrats ran for sheriff in 2020. The traditionally Republican county has become dramatically more Democratic over the past decade, helping to power Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids to victory in three congressional elections and rapidly growing number of Democrats to the Kansas Legislature.

“There are several Democrats who are considering entering the race for Sheriff in 2024. Sheriff Hayden’s conduct has been abhorrent in many different ways, but especially with relation to his election investigation,” Johnson County Democratic Party chair Deann Mitchell said in a statement.

Hayden set to appear at hard-right conference

Even in the primary election, the sheriff’s race could spark a divisive fight over elections if Hayden leans into the investigation as a campaign issue. Without offering evidence, some Republicans have voiced doubts over former President Donald Trump’s loss of Johnson County in 2020. He was the first Republican presidential candidate to lose the county in decades.

Hayden is scheduled to speak at the Determined Patriotism Conference in Kansas City, Kansas, in November – a self-described gathering of influencers in the “America First movement.” The conference website calls Hayden a candidate for sheriff, though he hasn’t yet formally filed for reelection.

Hayden is listed as speaker on a roster that includes Michael Flynn, who was forced out as Trump’s first national security advisor, became a promoter of Christian nationalism and was pardoned by Trump after lying to the FBI about his conversations with a Russian diplomat. Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and a promoter of baseless allegations about the 2020 election, is also listed to speak.

Kansas Republican Party chairman Mike Brown, who has promoted baseless suspicions about election security in Kansas, is a scheduled speaker as well. Brown unsuccessfully ran against Schwab in the GOP primary last year but was elected chairman early this year after Hayden nominated him at a party convention. Brown didn’t respond to a voicemail.

Also listed is Thad Snider, a Johnson County man who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit last year seeking a redo of the 2020 presidential election and criminal prosecution of Schwab.

“I don’t know how many of you know the name Calvin Hayden, but he’s probably the most important person in the election integrity movement you’ve never heard of,” Snider said at an event held by Lindell in August, according to a clip posted to Rumble, a video sharing platform popular among hard-right politicians and supporters.

Snider praised Hayden for blocking the destruction of Johnson County’s 2020 election materials, which he suggested could help Trump fight the criminal cases against him over his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman has previously said Hayden’s probe is stopping the county’s annual work of disposing of election documents – a routine process because of the limited storage available to county election officials.

“If any of you know President Trump and you want some exculpatory evidence from 2020, tell him to subpoena that evidence in Johnson County, Kansas, because it’s sitting there waiting for him,” Snider said.

While Snider has linked Hayden preserving 2020 records with helping Trump, the sheriff this year said he would be happy to clear the case. At a June meeting of the Johnson County Board of Commissioners, Hayden said he has two deputies, who also work on cold cases, on the investigation part time. He said obtaining necessary information has been difficult.

“As soon as we can get that data and we can say, ‘yep, there’s nothing here’ or ‘uh oh, we’ve got a problem,’ I would love to do that,” Hayden said.

However, last year Hayden said he started the criminal investigation to preserve the election records.

Johnson County Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara, a conservative who represents southern Overland Park, Stilwell and some rural areas of the county, cast the investigation as a “minor subheading” in the Sheriff Department’s work.

“There was a complaint made. He is following through with it. It’s an investigation that is open, and we have to allow it to continue and follow through with it,” O’Hara said.

O’Hara said she’s been happy with Hayden. She said Hayden has been an advocate for sheriff’s deputies and worked hard to raise their salaries. Last year, commissioners voted to raise the base pay of incoming deputies to $27.50 an hour and provide annual step-based raises at Hayden’s urging to address recruitment and retention issues.

“He’s a great leader. I have no problems with him whatsoever,” O’Hara said.

But Thomas Reddin, a former Johnson County Sheriff’s lieutenant, said the sheriff’s office needs to rebuild relationships with the police departments of municipalities within the county. Reddin has endorsed Bedford and the two have known each other for about 25 years.

“We can’t just sit back and see the agency that we spent half of our lives working at and still have friends at getting a bad rap for different things,” Reddin said.

Johnson County Commissioner Janeé Hanzlick, a progressive whose district includes Overland Park, said it was time for new leadership in the sheriff’s office. She expressed frustration not only with the election investigation but also with what she said was a lack of a strategic plan from the sheriff’s office on capital projects.

At a June meeting, commissioners questioned Hayden about his desire to one day build a larger training center he said could serve the entire region. He said that while he has been “planting seeds” about the idea, he hadn’t produced a formal business plan on it.

“I would love to be able to work with somebody who is realistic and transparent about their budget,” Hanzlick said.

Challenger wants return to ‘original principles’

How big a role more typical political issues, such as financial management, will play in the sheriff’s race remains unclear. Bedford’s campaign website and social media posts don’t explicitly mention the election investigation and he spoke about it during an interview only in response to a direct question.

Bedford has invoked the leadership of former Sheriff Fred Allenbrand, who first won election in 1966 and held office for 34 years, and former Sheriff Frank Denning, who was in office 2005-2016. His campaign website says the office “must return to its original principles of leadership and fiscal responsibility” as created by Allenbrand and strengthened by Denning.

“At no time would you ever see him upset. You wouldn’t see him be gruff with anybody,” Bedford said of Allenbrand in an interview. “He was just a leader, I guess I can honestly say unlike anybody I had ever seen before.”

Even if Bedford isn’t making the election investigation an explicit part of his campaign, Hayden’s probe still looms large in the minds of many officials and residents.

Michael Poppa, executive director of the Mainstream Coalition, condemned what he called a “wild goose chase” that has cost taxpayer dollars with no returns. Poppa, who is also mayor of Roeland Park but said he was speaking in his capacity with Mainstream, said many Johnson County residents are looking for a sheriff who is apolitical or nonpartisan and values safety “above politics and election conspiracy theories.”

Partisan politics shouldn’t play a role in the position of sheriff, Poppa said.

“There is no difference, or there should be no difference, in how our county sheriff acts, our county sheriff does their job, how they look after the safety of the community – there’s no difference between Republican, Democrat, independent, whatever the political party may be,” Poppa said.

“This is first and foremost a position that is tasked with keeping our county safe.”

The Star’s Judy Thomas contributed reporting