TOPEKA — Turnout in the Aug. 7 primary elections in Kansas far exceeded expectations, state election officials said Friday.

Bryan Caskey, who heads the elections division in the Kansas secretary of state’s office, said 486,598 people cast ballots in the election, for a turnout rate of 27 percent. Before the election, Secretary of State Kris Kobach had predicted a little more than 25 percent turnout.

The state also set a record for advance voting in a primary, with just more than 106,000 people casting ballots before Election Day. That shattered the previous record by more than 16,000 ballots, Caskey said, although it wasn’t clear what year that was.

Caskey presented those figures as the State Board of Canvassers met to certify the results of the primary.

As expected, Kobach narrowly won the Republican primary for governor, but only by 343 votes, seven fewer than the office had previously reported. Caskey said that was due to some typographical errors a few counties had made in their local canvass reports.

Still, Caskey said, it was one of the closest statewide primary races in state history, but he said he had not researched all the way back to 1910, when Kansas first began holding primaries, to determine if it was the closest primary race ever.

In other close races, incumbent Rep. John Whitmer, R-Wichita, lost his bid for another term in the Kansas House by a mere 60 votes to challenger J.C. Moore.

But the closest race was in the 104th House District, in Reno County, where incumbent Rep. Steven Becker, R-Buhler, lost by nine votes to challenger Paul Waggoner.

Going into the November general election, 37 Republicans and 23 Democrats will have no opposition in their races for the Kansas House, although people still can run as write-in candidates.

The secretary of state’s office will issue certificates of nomination to the winning primary candidates on Tuesday, Sept. 4. Counties will begin mailing ballots to military personnel stationed outside the state on Saturday, Sept. 22.

The general election will be Tuesday, Nov. 6, and the State Board of Canvassers will meet on Nov. 30 to certify the results of that election.