Mayor Quinton Lucas and most Kansas City Council incumbents win re-election Tuesday

Mayor Quinton Lucas and all but one of the six incumbent members of the Kansas City Council running for re-election had an easy time of it in Tuesday’s general election, securing new four-year terms.

Councilman Brandon Ellington was the lone exception, losing his 3rd District at large seat to newcomer Melissa Patterson Hazley by a wide margin as he did in the April 4 primary.

Which means there will be seven new faces on the city council when Lucas gavels in the new council on Aug. 1.

If there was a unifying theme of this low-turnout election, it was that council candidates generally agreed on the need to combat crime, foster more affordable housing and improve city services. Where voters might find differences was in evaluating how committed the candidates were to addressing those issues in the next four years.

Only in the race for mayor, which featured the long-shot candidacy of Clay Chastain, was there much rancor, and all of it was on the challenger’s side due to Chastain’s frustration with Lucas’ refusal to debate him.

At his victory party Tuesday night, Lucas said he’ll spend the next four years working with the new council “building a better city for everyone” and that he has “never been afraid to do what’s right.”

Asked what he hopes to accomplish, Lucas said:

“I think we need to continue to improve our neighborhoods in different parts of the city. We have aging housing stock, we continue to lose population in east Kansas City, south Kansas City and in southern Clay County. I think strong neighborhoods help build safer communities, help build more investment long term.”

Mayor

Lucas barely campaigned for re-election, even before winning the April primary four to one against perennial candidate and Bedford, Virginia, resident Chastain. He got a similar result on Tuesday, receiving 81% of the vote.

This was the fifth out of the last nine elections that Chastain has run for mayor on a platform promoting his mass transit dreams. In the four previous times he ran, Chastain failed to make it past the primary election, finishing third or lower in contests against former mayors Emanuel Cleaver, Kay Barnes and Sly James. Four years ago, he came in 10th in an 11-person field from which Lucas emerged to become the city’s third Black mayor. And like Cleaver and James before him, he has earned a second term.

Chastain, who listed his sister’s Kansas City address in filing for office, only made it to the general election this time because the city charter says the top two primary finishers advance to the general, and he was Lucas’ only challenger.

1st District at large

Incumbent Councilman Kevin O’Neill had no trouble winning a second term against Ronda Smith, garnering 72% of the vote. O’Neill, a centrist Democrat, had support from a long string of labor groups, including the Fraternal Order of Police.

Also a big supporter of law enforcement, Smith helped lead a campaign a couple of years ago to unseat city council members who had voted to cut police funding. Unfortunately for her, O’Neill wasn’t one of them, so she had no wedge issue to campaign on.

2nd District at large

With backing from labor, law enforcement and business, political newcomer Lindsay French narrowly won in this citywide race against Jenay Manley, who lost by 3 percentage points. French got 51.6% of the votes to Manley’s 48.4%. French replaces Teresa Loar, who was term limited.

The outcome was a blow to the political ambitions of KC Tenants, the affordable housing advocacy group of which Manley is a key leader. French largely stayed out of the media spotlight, whereas Manley and KC Tenants had an aggressive get-out-the-vote and media strategy.

3rd District at large

The odds were stacked against Brandon Ellington winning re-election after Melissa Patterson Hazley trounced him in the April primary. Over the previous three election cycles, all 25 candidates who got more than half the vote in the primary went on to win in the general election. Patterson Hazley got 57.5% of the vote in April and 60.5% in this go-around.

Like French, Patterson Hazley’s candidacy drew widespread support from myriad interest groups. She sold herself as a savvy problem solver who could work with others and get things done. Whereas Ellington, a self-proclaimed “full-time revolutionary,” marketed himself as an independent voice who was no rubber stamp for the city administration.

4th District at large

Not until Election Day was it clear who would win the race to succeed Kathryn Shields as the 4th District at large representative.

Crispin Rea finished far ahead of Justin Short in the primary, but it wasn’t clear which of them would get the support of voters who preferred the other three candidates in that primary race.

Short won big in his native Northland in Tuesday’s general election, but fell far short with voters south of the Missouri River, where Rea built his career and earned his political chops. The outcome: Rea, 57%, Short, 43%.

Rea, an assistant county prosecutor and former Kansas City school board member, becomes the first Hispanic member since Mike Hernandez in the 1990s.

One of Short’s main campaign selling points was that he would be a full-time council member, drawing a comparison between his thin resume — he worked on a cruise boat for seven years and more recently was manager of the apartment building where he lives — versus Rea having a full-time job putting bad guys in jail.

5th District at large

Another toss-up ahead of the general was the 5th District at large race to replace incumbent Lee Barnes, who was term-limited. Darrell Curls and Michael Kelley came in first and second ahead of former Jackson County legislator Theresa Cass Galvin in the primary, but neither got much more than a third of the votes cast.

The question was who would attract the larger share of support from voters who favored Galvin, the Republican in a nonpartisan race against two Democrats. Kelley, the more progressive of the two, came in second to Curls, who had the backing of big labor and the Black political club Freedom Inc.

Curls got 56% of the vote to Kelley’s 44%.

6th District at large

The outcome of the 6th District at large race was never in question after Andrea Bough claimed 61% of the vote in April’s three-way primary. Bough, the incumbent, won a second term by beating Jill Sasse, 72% to 28%.

1st District

A high school teacher with conservative credentials, including a stint working with the right-learning Show Me Institute, Nathan Willets repeated his primary election performance by once again beating former Clay County Democratic Party chair Chris Gahagan.

It was 63% for Willet and 37% for Gahagan. Albeit a non-partisan race, Willett’s conservative political leanings better fit this Northland district now represented by Heather Hall, who endorsed Willett to replace her as she exits the council after eight years due to term limits.

2nd District

Former Democratic state Rep. Wes Rogers ran unopposed for the seat now held by Dan Fowler, who was term limited.

3rd District

Incumbent Melissa Robinson easily won re-election over Sheri Hall, who she crushed in their two-person primary race.

She did it again on Tuesday, receiving 84% of the general election vote and guaranteeing that Robinson will have another four years to press the city administration to focus on issues that she feels are most important, including better city services for her East Side constituents, crime prevention and more accountability from City Manager Brian Platt. She has been Platt’s biggest critic on the council.

4th District

First-term incumbent Eric Bunch got more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary over long-time politico Henry Rizzo and Bunch’s former legislative aide, Crissy Dastrup. He’s had the wind at his back ever since and beat Rizzo 67% to 33% on Tuesday.

The former chief advocate for BikeWalkKC, Bunch promises to continue focusing on transportation issues, such as improved mass transit and more bike lanes.

5th District

Incumbent Ryana Parks Shaw was unopposed for a second term.

6th District

Veteran politico Dan Tarwater came up short on Tuesday, losing this open seat to Johnathan Duncan, who like Manley is a key advocate for the KC Tenants affordable housing group.

Tarwater served on the Jackson County Legislature for 28 years and for most of that time never faced a tough re-election bid. He ran for council after a set of new legislative district maps found him no longer living inside the district he had represented since the 1990s.

Tarwater finished first in the primary, but he got less than half the votes in a four-way contest. Duncan and two other candidates split the rest.

Duncan had no political experience, but benefited from a strong get-out-the-vote effort organized by KC Tenants, and got 56% of the vote when the polls closed on Tuesday.

Late in the campaign, a political action committee funded primarily by Tarwater supporters, including the unions representing firefighters, carpenters and the police, hit Duncan with mailers labeling him an extremist, accusing him of wanting to defund the police, provide free housing and forbid evictions for any reason.

A combat veteran who is on the staff of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in midtown Kansas City, Duncan was left open to the attacks because of his volunteerism with KC Tenants and support of spending money on violence prevention.

But Tarwater’s opponents dinged him for being out of step with district constituents due to conservative stances on crime, abortion and masking requirements during the pandemic.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct a reference to an Hispanic member of the council in the 1990s. The former council member was Mike Hernandez.