KINSLEY ? Edwards County Commissioner Duane Mathes has switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat to run for a seat in the Kansas House.

Mathes filed last Friday for the 117th District seat held by Republican Larry Powell, of Kalvesta. The district covers Hodgeman County, as well as parts of Edwards, Finney, Ness and Pawnee counties.

Mathes, a semiretired farmer and stockman from the Kinsley area, has been a county commissioner for 10 years. He said many factors contributed to his decision to switch parties and that he prefers a nonpartisan approach.

“I don’t think I left the Republican Party,” he said. “I think it left me.”

Powell, a semiretired rancher from Finney County, is seeking his fourth term in the House.

“People are always going to change their minds and attitudes,” Powell said. “I really think the Republican Party is going to come together this fall.”

Mathes is the fourth Kansas Republican to switch parties for this year’s election. Mark Parkinson, a former Kansas GOP chairman, became a Democrat to run for lieutenant governor with Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, and Paul Morrison, district attorney in Johnson County, switched parties for a November matchup with the Republican Atty. Gen. Phill Kline.

In another legislative race, Cindy Neighbor became a Democrat to seek the 18th District House seat of Republican Mary Pilcher Cook, of Shawnee.

“I think what it really comes right down to is personal ambition,” Ron Freeman, head of the Kansas Republican Party, said of the candidates leaving the party.

But Mike Gaughan, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said, “I think that Kansans are recognizing that the Kansas Democratic Party is the party putting partisanship aside.”