WASHINGTON (AP) — Kansas voters will choose their parties’ candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, state legislature and state Board of Education in Tuesday’s primaries.
The elections are unlikely to change the balance of power in Washington or Topeka, but in this heavily Republican state, many races in November will be decided largely in Tuesday’s primaries.
In the 2nd Congressional District, both Democrats and Republicans are holding primaries to succeed two-term Republican U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, who announced in April that he would not seek re-election. Among the five candidates vying for the Republican nomination is Derek Schmidt, the former three-term attorney general who ran unsuccessfully against Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in the 2022 gubernatorial election. Also seeking the nomination are former LaTurner adviser and Trump-era health and human services official Jeff Kahrs, rancher Shawn Tiffany and two others. Schmidt has led the field in campaign contributions, with Kahrs largely keeping up since mid-July.
The Democratic primary is also hotly contested. Among the candidates are former U.S. Representative Nancy Boyda, who served one term from 2007 to 2009, and Matt Kleinmann, a health activist and former basketball player at the University of Kansas.
LaTurner won re-election in 2022 with 58% of the vote. Voters in the 2nd District gave Republican Donald Trump 56% and 57% of the vote in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, respectively.
In the 3rd Congressional District, two Republicans are vying for the nomination to challenge three-term U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, who is the state’s only Democratic member of Congress. In the Republican primary, physician Prasanth Reddy is running against petite business owner and community activist Karen Crnkovich. Reddy has raised and banked nearly ten times as much campaign money as Crnkovich as of mid-July, even though both have significantly less money than the incumbent.
Davids received 55% of the vote in her 2022 re-election bid. She represents the state’s only swing district. Voters there preferred Trump to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 (48% to 43%). But in 2020 they gave Democrat Joe Biden 51% of the vote.
This year, all seats in the state legislature are up for election, with primaries being held on Tuesday for 16 seats in the state Senate and 25 seats in the state House of Representatives. Republicans have comfortable majorities in both chambers.
Voters will also decide the Republican primaries for the state Board of Education in the 4th and 10th districts.
Here’s a look at what to expect on Tuesday:
Primary school day
The Kansas state primary will be held on Tuesday, with the last polls closing at 9 p.m. ET. Most of Kansas is in the Central Time Zone, where polls close at 8 p.m. ET, but four counties are in the Mountain Time Zone, where polls close at 9 p.m. ET. All polls in the state close at 7 p.m. local time.
What is on the ballot
The Associated Press will announce voting results and announce the winners of the contested primaries for the U.S. House of Representatives, state Senate, state House of Representatives and state Board of Education.
Who can vote
Registered party members may only vote in their own party’s primary. In other words, Democrats may not vote in the Republican primary and vice versa. Independent or unaffiliated voters may vote in both primaries. In Kansas, parties have decided whether to allow unaffiliated voters to participate in their primaries.
Decision notes
The state’s most populous and pro-Democracy counties are Johnson, in the Kansas City suburbs, Sedgwick, which includes Wichita, and Shawnee, which includes the state capital of Topeka.
Shawnee plays a significant role in the 2nd Congressional District, representing about a quarter of the area’s population. The vote-rich Johnson is usually decisive and is in the 3rd Congressional District, representing 83% of the district’s population.
The AP does not make predictions and will only declare a winner if it determines that there is no scenario in which the trailing candidates could close the gap. If a race has not yet been called, the AP will continue to report on any major developments, such as concessions or declarations of victory by the candidates. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and will explain why.
There are no automatic recounts in Kansas, although a candidate can request one. Candidates do not have to pay for a recount if the vote difference is 0.5% or less. The AP can declare a winner in a race eligible for a recount if it determines the margin is too immense for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
What about voter turnout and early voting?
In June, there were 1,975,627 registered voters in Kansas. Of these, about 26% were Democrats and 44% were Republicans.
In the 2022 primary election, voter turnout was about 15% of registered voters in the Democratic primary and about 25% in the Republican primary. About 43% of Democratic primary voters and 30% of Republican primary voters cast their ballots before Primary Day.
As of Thursday, 55,519 votes had already been cast before the day of the primary election, with about 40% of those cast in the Democratic primary and 60% in the Republican primary.
How long does the vote count usually take?
In the 2022 state primaries, the AP first reported results at 8:22 p.m. ET, 22 minutes after most polls closed. Election night counting ended at 3:31 a.m. ET, after about 97% of all votes had been counted.
Are we already there?
As of Tuesday, there are 91 days left until the parliamentary elections in November.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
