Kansas Picks a Governor Tuesday: Holscher and Masterson Close a Long Race
With Gov. Laura Kelly barred by term limits from another run, Kansas chooses between the Senate president and a Johnson County state senator to lead the state into 2027.
Kansas voters will choose a new governor on Tuesday, ending a campaign that began the moment term limits closed the door on a third term for Gov. Laura Kelly.
The Democratic nominee is Cindy Holscher, a state senator from Johnson County and former state representative who built her campaign around public schools, health care access and the state's fiscal management. The Republican nominee is Ty Masterson, president of the Kansas Senate from Andover, whose campaign emphasized taxes, spending discipline and conservative social policy.
The race has drawn attention beyond Kansas because the state's recent politics have mixed signals: Kansas voters protected abortion access in a 2022 constitutional vote while continuing to elect Republican legislative supermajorities, and Kelly won twice as a Democrat in a state that votes Republican for president.
Whoever wins inherits a familiar Kansas balancing act — a Legislature with Republican supermajorities, recurring fights over school funding formulas and tax policy, and pressure on water policy as the Ogallala Aquifer declines beneath western Kansas farms.
The governor's race shares the statewide ballot with contests for attorney general, secretary of state and other executive offices, plus a U.S. Senate race and a proposed constitutional amendment.
Polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Because Kansas counts advance ballots that arrive within a grace period when postmarked by Election Day, a close result could take days to settle — a normal feature of Kansas elections, and one officials ask voters to expect rather than suspect.
