TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democrat Cindy Holscher has been elected Kansas’s next governor, fending off Republican Ty Masterson to keep the job in his party’s hands and extend a massive wave of Democratic victories across the country.
WATCH: Senator-elect Hamilton reflects on why Kansas voters chose a Democrat for the U.S. Senate
Democrats had already secured a majority of U.S. governorships for the first time in two decades, even before their narrow victory in Kansas, where Holscher had already declared victory after Tuesday’s midterm elections. The Associated Press did not report the race until Thursday.
Holscher, a state senator, promised to stop new data centers and overcome the flood of money that Republicans have thrown behind Masterson, the president of the GOP-controlled state Senate. She will succeed outgoing Gov. Laura Kelly, a term-limited Democrat.
“Kansans have sent a clear message that they want our state to continue moving forward,” Holscher said in a video posted online Tuesday, two days before the race began. “The work of preparing for leadership has already begun.”
Masterson remains the top Republican leader in the Kansas Senate. Before the race was called, he promised to continue fighting for lower property taxes — his biggest campaign promise — as well as safer communities and better schools.
Political winds favoring Holscher also pushed U.S. Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton, pastor of the nation’s largest United Methodist church, to the first Democratic victory in a Kansas Senate race since 1932.
In another big victory for Kansas Democrats, Chris Mann ousted state Attorney General Kris Kobach, a proponent of strict voter ID laws who served as vice chair of President Donald Trump’s commission on voter fraud in 2017.
Masterson had reason to be optimistic after emerging from a contentious August primary with Trump’s support. For 60 years, when a Kansas governor retired or was term limited, the other party’s candidate won the next election.
The Republican Governors Association invested $19 million in television and digital advertising, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact, and attacked Holscher as an extreme liberal. Both candidates’ fundraising in the fall was comparable, but Republicans spent more than 3 times as much overall as Democrats.
Holscher also faced early resistance to her candidacy from Kelly, who had previously supported another Democratic state senator and once suggested that Holscher might be too liberal to win in November. Kelly later endorsed Holscher and produced a video for her – but not before doing an ad for newly elected Iowa Governor-elect Rob Sand.
Holscher has made a state moratorium on building new data centers for artificial intelligence a cornerstone of his campaign. She said people want to limit their energy and water use and want to ensure the centers create local jobs.
“This cuts across party lines,” she told reporters in Topeka after the race ended. “People are asking for reasonable things.”
A former executive at Sprint Corp., Holscher lives in the Kansas City, Kansas, suburb of Johnson County, which boomed after World War II. It is the most populous county in the state, home to 23% of the state’s 2 million voters.
Johnson County has become increasingly Democratic since Trump’s first bid for president in 2016. Holscher won a seat in the Kansas House that year and was elected to the Senate in 2020.
She received more than 60 percent of the Johnson County vote, offsetting Masterson’s large margins in solidly Republican rural areas. Hamilton, who also lives in Johnson County, took the same path to victory.
A free press is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy.
Support trusted journalism and civil dialogue.
Gn headline
