Kansas Republicans celebrate early voting surge after using Dem tactic

TOPEKA — Kansas Republican Party chairman Mike Brown touted preliminary evidence the state’s GOP voters were matching the advance-voting operation typically relied on by Democrats to boost turnout.

Brown, chosen state party chairman after losing the 2022 primary for secretary of state on an election-integrity platform, said on Friday at the Capitol that Kansas voters responded to former President Donald Trump’s plea for his supporters to vote in advance of Election Day on Tuesday.

“We’re seeing it everywhere. The turnout is huge,” Brown said during a pitstop on the Kansas GOP’s bus tour. “At this point, I will say, as a Republican and chairman of the party, I’m very proud of the fact that we rose to the challenge. We spent a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of resources to make sure that people took it to heart.”

The approach stood in contrast to the election cycle in 2020, when Trump asked Republicans to turn their back on advance voting due to questions about election security. Trump lost his reelection campaign to Democrat Joe Biden, who chose not to seek a second term in 2024. The Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, is running a close national race against Trump with the outcome likely to be decided in a handful of swing states.

Trump is expected to carry Kansas after taking the state by 20.4 percentage points in 2016 and 14.6 percentage points in 2020.

Hefty turnout

On Friday, Secretary of State Scott Schwab said 516,776 ballots had been cast through advance voting by Kansans. At this point in the 2020 election cycle, 642,724 advance ballots had been forwarded to county election offices. In 2016, 375,857 advance ballots were submitted by this juncture.

“While we are comparing this year’s advance voting data to 2020 and 2016 elections, remember that the 2020 cycle was unusual due to the pandemic. Take that year with a grain of salt,” Schwab said. “We are on track to set a record, so I encourage every voter to get out and exercise their constitutional right.”

Of the state’s 1 million registered voters, 65.9% voted in 2020 and 59.7% cast a ballot in 2016.

During brief campaign speeches at the south steps of the Capitol, Republican congressional candidate Derek Schmidt celebrated the GOP’s work on advance voting but insisted conservatives shouldn’t be content. He’s running in the 2nd District against Democrat Nancy Boyda for the seat to be vacated by retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner.

“There are a lot of people voting in Kansas right now. We’re seeing record-setting advanced voting numbers and, as Republicans, the numbers are looking very, very good,” Schmidt said. “We cannot stop for four more days. Not until 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Even the Kansas City Chiefs lose against a high school team if they quit playing before the game is over. We got to run through the tape.”

“By Election Day, we can save this country. We can turn these things around. We can be better off in four years than we are today. But to do that, we have to win these elections next week,” he said.

GOP supermajorities

State Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, said the priorities were to elect Trump, gain GOP control of Congress and protect Republican supermajorities in the state Senate and House.

One of Gov. Laura Kelly’s objectives this year has been to add a few Democrats in the House and Senate so it would be more difficult for Republicans to override her vetoes.

“Do you want to go back to Trump $1.85 gas or do you want to stick where we are? This is such a stark choice,” Masterson said. “We need our supermajorities in order to override some of the mess that we’re in, right?”

Those two-thirds margins must be preserved by Republicans, he said, because “I could have a super-duper majority on the Senate side, but if we don’t have it on the House side, it’s kind of meaningless.”

Advance in-person voting ends at noon Monday in Kansas. To be counted, advance mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and received by a county election office no later than Nov. 8.

Ballots in Kansas include contests for U.S. president, the four U.S. House seats, all 165 seats in the Kansas House and Kansas Senate, and a collection of local government offices and ballot issues. None of the statewide executive branch offices, including governor and attorney general, are up for grabs in 2024.

U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican, could seek reelection in 2026, while U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, also a Republican, would face another election in 2028. Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly has two years left in her second term as governor.