photo by: Morgan Chilson/Kansas Reflector

Senate President Ty Masterson says a 25-foot boundary protecting law enforcement and emergency personnel from interference by the public will keep Kansas experiencing what Minnesota did when Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers arrived in that state. He is seen here during the Jan. 12, 2026, opening of the legislative session.

TOPEKA — Republican Ty Masterson rode President Donald Trump’s endorsement to victory Tuesday in a volatile seven-candidate gubernatorial primary, while Democrats Cindy Holscher and Ethan Corson continued to slug it out for their party’s nomination.

Masterson, the Andover president of the Kansas Senate, built an early lead with 40% of the GOP vote as results began rolling in from precincts statewide. He ran away from businessman Phil Sarnecki and Kansas Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt and Secretary of State Scott Schwab. Sarnecki had no previous political experience, Schmidt was vulnerable to attacks for a series of moderate votes on abortion as a member of the Legislature and Schwab never found his footing in a crowded field of conservatives.

“I didn’t just talk about conservative values. I’ve delivered,” Masterson said. “We cut income taxes, eliminated the state tax on Social Security, cut property taxes, axed the grocery tax, protected girls’ sports, defended the unborn and stood up to federal mandates when it counted.”

He said a top opportunity for change on the horizon was finding an answer to surging property taxation that had a detrimental effect on home ownership and business success.

The roster of other Republicans in the race included former Johnson County Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara of Olathe, Nick Reinecker of Inman and Wichita businessperson Stacy Rogers.

In terms of Democratic voters in the gubernatorial race, Holscher and Corson — both state senators from Johnson County — fulfilled expectations for a close race once the polls closed. Early in the counting, Holscher had 47% of the vote to Corson’s 41%. The third option, Overland Park Mayor Curt Skoog, had 12%.

While Corson claimed the outgoing Democratic governor’s endorsement and relied on heavy spending on television advertisements, he struggled to connect with voters concerned about his electability in November. There was a sense among some Democrats that Holscher’s mix of public policy positions and a combative campaign style were better suited for challenging the GOP nominee.

Holscher offered herself as an anti-establishment candidate dedicated to funding K-12 public education, protecting communities from the data center craze, legalizing cannabis and restraining use of tax breaks to drive economic growth.

“I’m not attached to the establishment. I’m attached to working people,” Holscher said. “I’ll take on anyone, regardless of party, who stands in the way of lower costs, better schools and a government that works for everyday people. I won’t be bought by billionaires, bullied by special interests and insiders, or pressured by the political establishment.”

Corson, an attorney who worked at the U.S. Department of Commerce before entering the state Senate, said he was the only Democrat with a strategy for responsibly lowering property taxes. He would authorize a $250 vehicle registration tax credit for every vehicle registered in the state.

“We would freeze property taxes on even more of our fixed-income seekers,” Corson said. “We would bring back in the one-third of Kansans who rent into our property tax relief program.”

He promised to veto “pork” projects thrown into the state budget by the Legislature and reject bills designed to undermine abortion rights affirmed in a statewide vote in 2022.

Kansas voters have a tradition of cycling between Republican and Democratic governors. Kelly, the two-term Democrat, followed Colyer, who finished the unexpired second term of GOP Gov. Sam Brownback. Brownback won the governorship after departure of Democratic Gov. Mark Parkinson, who completed the last year of Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ second term.

In 2022, Kelly dominated a two-candidate primary with 93% of the vote. She went up against then-Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who won the GOP nomination with 80% of the party’s vote. In the general election, Kelly won a second term by outrunning Schmidt by a margin of 49.5% to 47.3%.

Kelly prevailed in 2018 by winning a five-candidate primary in which she scored 51.4% of the vote. Her top competition came from former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer with 20.1% and Josh Svaty at 17.4%. Then-Secretary of State Kris Kobach won the GOP primary against Colyer by 343 votes out of more than 250,000 cast. In the general election, Kelly secured 48% of the vote to Kobach’s 42.9%.

— Tim Carpenter is a journalist with the Topeka-based news service Kansas Reflector.