Outside of abortion amendment, Wichitans won’t have much to vote on in August
In August, Wichita voters will help determine whether state lawmakers can ban abortions.
But they won’t have much choice in who those representatives are.
Only one Wichita House race has a primary contest. That lack of competition will carry over into November, when more than half of Wichita’s House districts – 12 out of 22 – will have a single name on the ballot.
The Aug. 2 vote on abortion rights — the nation’s first statewide referendum on abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe — is expected to turn out voters who wouldn’t normally show up for a primary election.
But a lack of competition in other primary races — for the state House and the Sedgwick County commission — all but assures the vote on abortion won’t have a significant down-ballot ripple effect.
Several of the Wichita House districts haven’t had a competitive race in years.
It’s a reflection of a fractured political system that discourages civic participation in Kansas, the culmination of decades of social and political polarization, insufficient pay for legislators that discourages working-class people from running for office and overall voter apathy, said Russell Arben Fox, a political scientist and professor at Friends University,
And it’s happening as voters consider a primary ballot question many hope or fear will lead to a statewide ban on abortion. Besides that, the most competitive races on Wichita ballots in August could be Republican primaries for state attorney general and secretary of state.
Local Republican and Democratic party committee leaders acknowledge they are more focused on the abortion amendment vote than on fielding competitive statehouse races this year. They said the lack of competition is not likely to depress voter turnout for the amendment.
The Republican party supports the amendment, and the Democratic Party opposes it. It would remove abortion rights from the Kansas Constitution and open a pathway to restrictions or an outright ban on abortion across the state.
“I think the best role our local Sedgwick County Republican Party can play is to help provide education about the amendment on the August ballot,” David Thorne, chairman of the local GOP, said in a written statement. “A lack of primary contests doesn’t lower the importance we will place on the question before voters.”
“What’s more important to the party than simply slating candidates for the sake of slating candidates is doing the ‘work,’” Sedgwick County Democratic Chairman Joseph Shepard said in a statement. “By that, I mean we will continue to knock the doors of voters in every single district and precinct. . . . Regarding some races not being contested, I will say that while it isn’t ideal; I am proud of the work the party has done to engage new voices in the conversation about running for office this year or in future years.”
Low pay, low participation
Wichita is split into 22 Kansas House districts. All of those seats are up for election this year, while the Kansas Senate isn’t up for election until 2024.
Only 10 of the 22 House districts will have at least two names on the ballot in November.
That means 12 candidates — mostly incumbents but also some who have never had to campaign — will automatically win their races without having to compete for their seat.
Two of those candidates — Carl Maughan and Ford Carr — have never been elected by voters in their district, but they will likely automatically take their seats in the Kansas House because voters won’t have an alternative on the ballot.
Maughan, a Republican, filed to run to replace Republican Rep. Steven Huebert in District 90. Carr, a Democrat, filed to replace Democratic Rep. Gail Finney, who announced the day of the filing deadline that she would not seek reelection in District 84.
Wichita’s Democratic House candidates won’t have any primary challenges in August. Republicans will have one.
Republican Rep. Joe Seiwert, of Pretty Prairie, and former Goddard Mayor Jamey Blubaugh, who resigned in 2020 two days before being arrested and charged with counterfeiting passes to an annual Zoobilee charity event at the Sedgwick County Zoo, will square off in the Republican primary for District 101.
This won’t be their first primary battle. Seiwert defeated Blubaugh and another candidate, Mark Holick, in the 2012 Republican primary.
Another ex-mayor of Goddard — Hunter Larkin — also filed to run in the District 101 primary, but withdrew from the race at the last minute. He resigned as mayor last month after a Wichita Eagle opinion column questioned some of his campaign contributions. He is still on the Goddard City Council.
“I just didn’t feel it was the right time for a three-way primary, and I feel like God was leading me in a different way,” Larkin said.
That district has the smallest share of Wichita voting-age population — 5,193 — of any of the 22 House districts that at least partially cover the largest city in Kansas. It also includes several small towns in western Sedgwick and eastern Reno counties. No Democratic candidate is running for the seat.
Fox, the political scientist, said most of the Kansas House seats in Wichita don’t have challengers because districts have been drawn in such a way that the outcome of elections can seem predetermined, based on demographics and historical voting patterns.
“That’s one of the primary reasons people don’t step up — because they don’t think they have a chance to win,” Fox said. “Call it gerrymandering, call it polarization, call it whatever you want. There’s all sorts of different factors that have contributed to making legislative seats more often than not very skewed one way or another towards either Republican voters or Democratic voters.”
Fox said another barrier to fielding multiple candidates in Kansas House races is the low pay.
The Kansas Legislature is only in session for part of the year, usually 90 days. Lawmakers get paid $88.66 plus $109 per diem each day the Legislature is in session. They also have a $7,083 allowance for out-of-session costs. That adds up to about $24,872 a year for the average Kansas legislator.
Leadership positions come with more responsibilities and more money. The president of the Senate and speaker of the House receive an additional $14,039 a year; majority and minority leaders receive an additional $12,665 a year; other leadership positions also receive additional money.
“The Kansas House, considering the workload, doesn’t actually pay that much,” Fox said. “It involves a great deal of work and often a great deal of travel — but only for part of the year — so it is set up, structurally, in terms of its costs and benefits, to mainly appeal to maybe doctors or lawyers who can step away from their practice for a while, independently wealthy people, retired individuals, those sorts of people.
“There’s a real economic selectivity to who can actually afford to run for political office,” Fox said. “But I would think that if the salary of Kansas representatives and senators bumped by say $10,000 that you would not have 12 seats going unopposed. You might have six. You might have seven. The money is a big deal for a lot of people.”
One race, four candidates
The most competitive legislative race in south-central Kansas is south of Wichita in neighboring Cowley and Sumner counties.
Cheryl Helmer, a Republican from Mulvane, is the only incumbent in the Wichita area with challengers from both parties.
Helmer has made headlines for falsely labeling Wichita as a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants, leveling transphobic attacks on the state’s first openly transgender legislator and co-sponsoring model legislation backed by special interest groups that would require schools and other government buildings to display the religious motto “In God We Trust.”
Webster Roth, a Winfield Republican, substitute teacher and owner of Roth Auction Service, filed to run against her in August.
Democrats Kris Trimmer, a former Winfield High School teacher who is in the Kansas Teachers’ Hall of Fame, and Cristel Heffron Love, of Peck, have also filed to run for the seat.
The general election could be a quasi-rematch, giving Trimmer a chance to avenge her husband’s narrow loss to Helmer in 2018. Ed Trimmer served in the Legislature for 14 years before losing to Helmer by less than 1 percentage point four years ago.
The winner will represent the newly expanded District 79, south of Wichita in Sumner and Cowley counties, including residents from Arkansas City, Belle Plaine, Mayfield, Milton, Mulvane, Oxford, Peck, Rock, Udall and Wellington.
Who’s running unopposed
Republicans: Blake Carpenter, District 81; Carl Maughan, District 90; Brian Bergkamp, District 93; Tom Kessler, District 96; Nick Hoheisel, District 97; Cyndi Howerton, District 98; Susan Humphries, District 99; winner of District 101 primary
Democrats: Henry Helgerson, District 83; Ford Carr, District 84; KC Ohaebosim, District 89; John Carmichael, District 92
Competitive races in November
District 85: Republican incumbent Patrick Penn will face Democratic challenger Jalon Britton.
District 86: Democrat Silas Miller will face Republican Rick Lindsey in the race to replace Rep. Stephanie Byers, who is stepping down after one term as the first openly transgender person to serve in the Kansas Legislature and the first transgender Native American person elected to office in the United States.
District 87: Republican incumbent Susan Estes will defend her seat against Democrat Chris Strong.
District 88: Democrat Chuck Schmidt, who was appointed to the seat by Democratic precinct committee members in June 2021 after Elizabeth Bishop resigned, will face Republican Sandy Pickert.
District 91: Republican incumbent Emil Bergquist will face Democrat Brooke Chong and Libertarian Steve Baird.
District 94: Republican incumbent Leo Delperdang will face Democrat Robert Howes.
District 95: Democratic incumbent Tom Sawyer will face Republican Christopher Parisho in a rematch of 2020, when Sawyer defeated Parisho with 56% of the vote.
District 100: Republican incumbent and House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins will face Democrat Mike McCorkle.
District 103: Democrat Angela Martinez will face Liberatarian Loren John Hermreck in the race to replace Democratic Rep. Ponka-We Victors.
District 105: Republican incumbent Brenda Landwehr will face Democrat Jaelynn Abegg.
