Topeka ? Sen. Sam Brownback easily won the Republican nomination for another term in Tuesday’s primary election over a little-known and under-financed Lawrence businessman.

But an upset occurred in the Democratic primary, where Robert Conroy, a retired railroad engineer from Shawnee, captured the nomination. Party leaders had seen Lee Jones, a Lenexa railroad engineer and former union lobbyist, as the favorite. However, with 91 percent of the state’s precincts reporting, Conroy had 56 percent of the vote.

Brownback, 47, sought his second full term in the Senate. After winning a special election in 1996 to replace Bob Dole, who resigned to campaign as the GOP nominee for president, Brownback easily captured a six-year term in 1998.

He had $1.4 million in his campaign account going into July, and no Democrat has won a Senate seat from Kansas since George McGill in 1932.

Naramore, 52, said he’d spent only about $2,000 on his campaign. His only previous campaign was an unsuccessful bid for a seat on his local drainage district’s board in 2000.

He criticized Brownback for taking money from political action committees and for supporting last year’s invasion of Iraq.

Jones, 53, lobbied for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers both in Topeka and Washington before running for the Senate. In 1990, he was the Democratic nominee in the 3rd Congressional District, losing to Republican incumbent Jan Meyers.

He entered the race in June and by mid-July had raised only about $18,000, a sum that included a $10,000 loan to his own campaign.

Conroy, 76, acknowledged that he filed only to ensure Brownback had an opponent and said he did not do much campaigning.

Meanwhile, former Kansas Transportation Secretary Horace Edwards hoped to get on the general election ballot as an independent candidate. On Monday, Edwards, 79, of Topeka, submitted petitions with the signatures of 5,300 Kansans with the secretary of state’s office, with 5,000 signatures from registered voters required.