Incumbent Laura Kelly (D) defeated Derek Schmidt (R), Dennis Pyle (independent), and Seth Cordell (L) in the general election for governor of Kansas on November 8, 2022.
This was the only governorship Democrats were defending in 2022 in a state that Donald Trump (R) won in 2020.
Kelly was elected governor in 2018, defeating Republican Kris Kobach by a margin of five percentage points. Kobach defeated then-incumbent Gov. Jeff Colyer (R) in the Republican primary by 343 votes, or one-tenth of a percentage point. Before becoming governor, Kelly served in the Kansas State Senate from 2005 to 2019.
Kelly’s campaign website said she had “worked with both parties to balance the budget, fully fund schools, grow the economy, and rebuild the state’s infrastructure – all while guiding the state during unprecedented times and fighting to cut costs for families, including axing the grocery tax.”[1] In a campaign ad, Kelly said, “Like most Kansans, I’m not too far right or too far left. I’ve always been pretty middle-of-the-road. And that’s how I’ve governed.”[2]
Schmidt was elected Kansas attorney general in 2010 and re-elected in 2014 and 2018. Before that, he served in the Kansas State Senate from 2001 to 2011.
After winning the Republican nomination, Schmidt said, “Our citizens want and deserve effective, commonsense leadership guided by Kansas conservative values. With the primary election behind us, it is time for Republicans … [to] reject the big-government liberalism that binds Joe Biden to Laura Kelly. … [Y]oung people and retirees are leaving our state, more than 20,000 fewer Kansans are working here than the day [Kelly] took office, and Kansas families are struggling with the skyrocketing cost of daily life because of Biden’s big-government inflation.”[3]
When Kelly was elected in 2018, Republicans held trifecta control of the Kansas state government for eight years. Before that, Kansas had a divided government for eight years. Democrats have not had a majority in either chamber of the Kansas State Legislature since 1992. Kansas also had a Republican triplex before Kelly’s election.
According to The Kansas City Star’s Jonathan Shorman and Katie Bernard, the last time a Democratic governor was elected while a Democratic president was in office was in 1978, and the last time a Democratic governor won re-election under a Democratic president was in 1968. Shorman and Bernard wrote, “Throughout modern Kansas history, Republicans and Democrats have regularly traded control of the governor’s office. But another rule that has also held firm over the past 50 years is that incumbent governors don’t win reelection when their party also holds the presidency.”[4]
On July 26, 2022, the Topeka Capital-Journal’s Andrew Bahl wrote that the election was “shaping up to be the most expensive in state history,” with Kelly and Schmidt having spent a combined $3.7 million at that time.[5] According to Shorman and Bernard, “[b]oth Republicans and Democrats have centered the race about Kelly’s record.”[4]
In Kansas, the lieutenant governor is elected on a joint ticket with the governor. Kelly’s running mate was incumbent Lt. Gov. David Toland (D), Schmidt’s running mate was Katie Sawyer (R), Cordell’s running mate was Evan Laudick-Gains (L), and Pyle’s running mate was Kathleen Garrison (independent).
This was one of 36 gubernatorial elections that took place place in 2022. The governor serves as a state’s top executive official and is the only executive office that is elected in all 50 states. At the time of the 2022 elections, there were 28 Republican governors and 22 Democratic governors. Click here for a map with links to our coverage of all 50 states’ responses to the pandemic and here for an overview of all 36 gubernatorial elections that took place in 2022. Many candidates used election stickers and other means of grassroots outreach to try to sway voters.
Heading into the 2022 elections, there were 23 Republican trifectas, 14 Democratic trifectas, and 13 divided governments where neither party held trifecta control. There were 23 Republican triplexes, 18 Democratic triplexes, and nine divided governments where neither party held triplex control.
A state government trifecta refers to a situation where one party controls a state’s governorship and majorities in both chambers of the state legislature. A state government triplex refers to a situation where the governor, attorney general, and secretary of state are all members of the same political party.
For more information about the primaries in this election, click on the links below: