Jennifer Winn

Jennifer Winn's campaign website features a photo touting her support for gun rights. She is shown with a Sig

Topeka ? In almost any election cycle, a few dark horse candidates come out of the woodwork and file to run for high office against sitting incumbents. They argue that ordinary citizens grounded in common sense are just as capable of running government as seasoned politicians.Few of them get very far.

But Jennifer Winn is one such candidate who has caught a lot of people’s attention, and not just because she’s a Republican who favors legalizing industrial hemp. She’s challenging Gov. Sam Brownback, and two SurveyUSA polls conducted for KSN-TV in Wichita have shown her getting as much as 30 percent of the vote.

Some analysts have said that’s more of an indicator that Brownback remains unpopular among moderates within his own party, and they’re willing to vote for anyone but the governor. But Winn said she isn’t surprised by those numbers.

“We think we’re actually doing better than that,” she said. “I believe people are ready to be represented by common, working-class people that don’t have the potential to line their pockets and make a career out of this.”

Winn got into politics this year through an unusual route. She admits that she never spent much time thinking about politics, preferring to spend more energy focusing on family life and running her landscaping business, until her son was arrested and charged with felony murder after a drug deal allegedly went bad, even though her son never fired a shot or injured anyone else.

Her son, Kyle Carriker, was charged, she said, because he had helped arrange a deal for some friends to buy a small amount of marijuana, and he was present at the meeting when gunfire broke out and a 33-year-old man was killed. Carriker himself was injured in the gunfire.

“My son’s situation was basically that he helped a friend of a friend to get some pot,” Winn said.

Now she’s an advocate for legalizing marijuana. She’s also a strong advocate for legalizing the industrial production of hemp, a variety of the plant that can be used for textiles.

“When I learned that China was the largest exporter of hemp products, and the United States was its largest customer at $17 billion a year, I realized we put a prohibition on a plant that could be a huge factor in economic growth,” she said.

Jennifer Winn’s campaign website features a photo touting her support for gun rights. She is shown with a “Sig Sauer, semi-automatic AR-15 with a collapsible stock, flash suppressor, combat grip, thirty round clip, and a holographic scope.”

Mark Joslyn, a political science professor at Kansas University who studies public opinion polling, said it’s unlikely a large number of Kansas Republicans actually support Winn as governor.

“As a general statement, I’d say it’s not necessarily what you think,” Joslyn said. “I’d say it’s more about opposition to Brownback, and not necessarily support for that candidate.”

Chapman Rackaway, a political science professor at Fort Hays State University, agreed.

“There are a lot of Republicans who, since Brownback came in, have been shuffled to the side,” he said. “Many of them constitute the same folks who have endorsed (Democrat Paul) Davis, but they’re still registered Republicans. They can’t vote for Davis in the Republican primary, but they can cast a protest vote in the primary.”

And that could be important, because if Winn actually gets 20 percent or more in Tuesday’s primary, Rackaway said it could be an early indicator that Brownback is vulnerable in the general election.

Winn, however, says she is campaigning hard, and she believes people are interested in her message.

On her campaign website, she touts support for issues that resonate with libertarian-minded Republicans. She’s a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights, evidenced by the assault-rifle photo. She believes schools spend too much money on administrative overhead, and that the tax code should be simplified while eliminating “corporate welfare.”

She also thinks more attention should be paid to the Fourth Amendment prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, adding: “We need to seriously re-evaluate the War on Drugs.”

And with that message, she’s travelling the state, campaigning at every opportunity she’s offered.

“I’ve pretty much tried to make every event I’m invited to — every forum, every opportunity I have to meet the public,” she said from her cellphone while driving from Wichita to an event in Kansas City.

“I don’t have millions of dollars to put ads on television,” she said. “But I think the campaign is going well. Every day I’m on the phone for hours, taking calls, answering emails and Facebook messages. It gets harder and harder every day to keep up.”

— Peter Hancock can be reached at (785) 354-4222. Email him at phancock@ljworld.com.