Republican Kris Kobach made a political comeback to claim a win in the Kansas Attorney General race, besting Democrat Chris Mann by a margin of 51-49%, according to unofficial results from the Kansas Secretary of State’s office. Kobach leads by about 22,000 votes with 99% of the ballots counted. Mail-in ballots have until Monday to come in, but the outstanding votes are largely in rural areas of the state.
Governor Laura Kelly appears to be winning reelection 49-48% over former Attorney General Derek Schmidt, with a lead of less than 14,000 votes after 99% of the ballots were counted. Independent Dennis Pyle played a spoiler role, gaining 2% of the vote, while Libertarian Seth Cordell got 1%. UPDATE: Kelly has been declared the winner.
Kansans’ memory of “Lockdown Laura” and her shutdowns of Kansas schools and businesses appeared to be short-lived. Kelly also vetoed bills to ban biological men from competing in women’s sports.
If Kelly’s lead holds, Pyle and his supporters will be remembered as handing a likely Schmidt win over to Kelly.
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In the U. S. Senate, Republican Jerry Moran handily won reelection over Mark Holland 61-37%.
All four U. S. Congressional seats were won by the incumbent: Jake LaTurner (R) over Patrick Schmidt 58-42%; Tracey Mann (R) over James Beard 68-32%; Ron Estes (R) over Bob Hernandez 64-36%; Sharice Davids (D) over Amanda Adkins 55-43%.
Republican Steven Johnson won the Kansas State Treasurer seat over Lynn Rogers 54-41%.
Scot Schwab (R) won relection over Jeanna Repass 59-38%.
In the other statewide race, Commissioner of Insurance Vicki Schmidt was reelected 63-37%.
Constitutional Amendment 1, concerning legislative oversight of rules and regulations, is about 6000 votes short of passing at this time, and appears likely to fail.
Amendment 2, concerning sheriff elections has passed 62-38%.
In State Board of Education races, Michelle Dombrosky defeated Sheila Albers 53-47%, and Danny Zeck bested Jeffrey Howards 62-38%.
All Supreme Court judges survived retention votes handily.
READ: Republicans likely to gain control of House but red wave fizzles
Kobach said he will defend the current Kansas statutes and crack down on drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
“Number one will be taking some steps to address the fentanyl crisis,” he stated. “There are several things we can do. I believe we need to amend our statutes and increase the penalties of people who are dealing in fentanyl that results in someone dying.”
In addition, Kobach has pledged to make suing the Biden administration a priority, including a plan to start a civil litigation division in the office for that purpose.
Complete local election results are available at https://ent.sos.ks.gov/kssos_ent.html.
–Lee Hartman | Metro Voice News