WASHINGTON — Kansas voters will choose their party’s nominees for the U.S. House of Representatives, the state legislature and the state Board of Education in primaries on Tuesday.
The election is unlikely to change the balance of power in Washington or Topeka, but many November races will actually be decided during Tuesday’s primary in the state where most Republicans live.
In the 2nd Congressional District, both Democrats and Republicans are holding primaries to succeed two-term Republican Rep. Jake LaTurner, who announced in April that he would run not to be re-electedAmong the five candidates seeking the Republican nomination is Derek Schmidt, the former three-term state attorney general and challenged in vain Democratic Governor Laura Kelly in the 2022 gubernatorial elections. Also vying for the nomination are former LaTurner aide 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 pace through mid-July.
Democrats also have a contested primary, with contestants including former U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda, who served one term from 2007 to 2009, and Matt Kleinmann, a public health advocate and former University of Kansas basketball player.
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 races, respectively.
In the 3rd Congressional District, two Republicans are vying for the nomination to challenge three-term U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, the state’s only Democratic congresswoman. The GOP primary pits physician Prasanth Reddy against small-business owner and community activist Karen Crnkovich. Reddy has raised and banked nearly 10 times as much campaign money as Crnkovich through mid-July, though both lag significantly behind the incumbent’s war chest.
Davids won 55% of the vote in her 2022 reelection bid. She represents the state’s only swing district. Voters there favored Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, 48% to 43%. But they gave Democrat Joe Biden 51% of the vote in 2020.
All seats in the state legislature are up for election this year, with 16 seats in the Senate and 25 seats in the House of Representatives facing primaries on Tuesday. Republicans hold secure 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 what to expect on Tuesday:
The Kansas primary election is 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.
The Associated Press will announce the voting results and declare the winners of the contested primaries for the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate, House of Representatives and state Boards of Education.
Registered party members may vote only in their own party’s primaries. In other words, Democrats may not vote in Republican primaries or vice versa. Independent voters may participate in both primaries. In Kansas, the parties decided whether independent voters would be allowed to participate in their primaries.
The state’s most populous counties — and those that lean most Democratic — are Johnson in the Kansas City suburbs, Sedgwick, where Wichita is located, and Shawnee, where the state capital, Topeka, is located.
Shawnee plays a major role in the 2nd Congressional District, with about a quarter of the area’s population. The vote-rich Johnson is usually decisive in the 3rd Congressional District, with 83% of the district’s population.
The AP does not make predictions and will only declare a winner if it has been determined that there is no scenario in which the trailing candidates can close the gap. If no race has been declared, the AP will continue to report on all newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make it clear that no winner has been declared and explain why.
Kansas does not have automatic recounts, although a candidate can request one. Candidates do not have to pay for a recount if the margin of the vote is 0.5 percent of the vote or less. The AP can declare a winner in a race eligible for a recount if it determines that the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
As of June, there were 1,975,627 registered voters in Kansas. Of those, approximately 26% were Democrats and 44% Republicans.
In the 2022 primaries, 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 been cast in the primaries, about 40% in the Democratic primary and 60% in the Republican primary.
In the state’s 2022 primaries, the AP first reported results at 8:22 p.m. ET, or 22 minutes after most polls closed. Election night counting ended at 3:31 a.m. ET with about 97% of the total votes counted.
As of Tuesday, there are 91 days left until the November general election.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.