TOPEKA, Kan — Gov. Laura Kelly and her allies have unseated a fellow Democrat who consistently voted against her in the Kansas Legislature, while GOP voters ousted a lawmaker many Republicans blamed for Kelly's narrow reelection two years ago.
Democratic state Rep. Marvin Robinson, of Kansas City, and Republican state Sen. Dennis Pyle, of Hiawatha, lost in Tuesday's primary as their parties picked nominees for congressional and legislative seats and scores of offices in the state's 105 counties.
“I don’t take pleasure in ending somebody’s political career,” Kelly told reporters Wednesday. “I do take pleasure in the thought of a Legislature that will work together and work with me.”
Democrats simplify their goal in legislative races
Robinson's loss could make it easier for Democrats to break the Republicans' supermajorities. There's no GOP candidate in Robinson's district, and had he won, Democrats would have had to pick up an extra House seat to offset his possible votes against Kelly.
His break with Kelly and his party's lawmakers became crucial to GOP efforts to enact new abortion restrictions and roll back LGBTQ+ rights over Kelly's vetoes. Republicans and GOP-aligned groups backed Robinson's reelection effort — one GOP-leaning PAC even produced a mailer favorably linking Robinson to former President Barack Obama to boost his primary chances, the Sunflower State Journal reported.
Many Democrats worried that Robinson's three primary challengers would split the vote enough for Robinson to win. Kelly's Middle of the Road PAC endorsed Wanda Brownlee Paige, a Kansas City, Kansas, school board member, and she won easily.
Neither Paige nor Robinson responded immediately Wednesday to text or phone messages seeking comment.
Other Kelly-backed legislative candidates also won
The governor's PAC endorsed three other candidates who won their contested Democratic legislative primaries: veteran state Sens. Marci Francisco, of Lawrence, and David Haley, of Kansas City, and Patrick Schmidt, a former Navy intelligence officer running in Topeka for an open Senate seat.
Schmidt's main opponent was House Minority Leader Vic Miller, who differed this year with Kelly on tax cuts and backed measures she vetoed. Schmidt raised more than $176,000, four times as much as Miller.
Kelly's break with Miller was telegraphed in May, when Kelly's chief of staff and the chief of staff for the Senate's Democratic leader met with Schmidt at a local chili parlor. They were observed leaving by an Associated Press correspondent and a Topeka Capital-Journal reporter having lunch there.
A conservative who clashed with GOP leaders loses
Pyle angered Republican leaders in 2022 when he temporarily left the party to run for governor as an independent against Kelly and the GOP nominee, then-Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
Pyle's official total of about 20,000 votes was about 1,800 shy of the margin between Kelly and her Republican foe, but GOP leaders said Pyle changed the cast of the race. He said Republicans fielded a weak nominee.
Pyle already had lost committee assignments in the Senate in a clash with President Ty Masterson over redistricting in 2022, and he later found himself reassigned a tiny office in the Statehouse basement. He returned to the GOP but faced two primary opponents, state Rep. John Eplee, of Atchison, and Craig Bowser, a state information security officer with a farm in Holton. Bowser won, and there is no Democratic candidate for the seat.
Pyle declined to comment. Bowser said he thinks voters were ready for fresh ideas.
“We worked extremely hard and had meaningful conversations with voters about taxes, the border crisis, and healthcare in Kansas,” he said in an email.
Democrats show unity after a tight congressional race
Former U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda, this year's Democratic nominee in the 2nd Congressional District of eastern Kansas, on Wednesday attributed her narrow victory to voters' desire for “an independent and moderate woman.” She was the last Democrat to hold the seat, in 2007 and 2008.
Boyda positioned herself to the political center, riling some party activists.
“That’s the only chance that we have, against a very viable opponent,” she said in an interview. The GOP nominee is Derek Schmidt, the former Kansas attorney general.
But Boyda praised her primary opponent, Matt Kleinmann, a community health advocate who was a member of the 2008 national champion University of Kansas men's basketball team. Boyda said Kleinmann's challenge helped her get her message out, and there wouldn't have been any candidate forums without it.
“He’s a very good candidate, and I really hope to see his name on some ballot soon,” Boyda said.
Kleinmann pledged his support for Boyda in a statement.
"Our work does not end here," he said. “We must continue to fight for affordable housing, better healthcare, and a fair economy that works for everyone.”
Other notes on the Kansas primary
Kelly became chair of the Democratic Governors Association on Wednesday, elevated from vice president when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz stepped down to become Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate in the presidential race.
As of Wednesday morning, 318,728 ballots had been counted, equal to 16.1% of the state's nearly 2 million registered voters, according to the Kansas secretary of state's office.
