It's nearly over: Kansas candidates racing to finish
Tim Carpenter, The Topeka Capital-Journal
Careers of veteran red-state Republicans U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts and Gov. Sam Brownback hang in the balance Tuesday when voters close a campaign cycle in Kansas featuring an alarming appetite for polit…
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Topeka Capital-Journal
Careers of veteran red-state Republicans U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts and Gov. Sam Brownback hang in the balance Tuesday when voters close a campaign cycle in Kansas featuring an alarming appetite for political spending and zealous branding by attack advertising.

Both candidates were bouncing around the state Monday, as did their rivals, independent Senate candidate Greg Orman and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Paul Davis, in the final full day of electioneering. They mingled with candidates for the state’s four U.S. House seats, the 125-member Kansas House and offices of attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and insurance commissioner.

A raffle amendment to the Kansas Constitution is on the November statewide ballot, along with judicial retention questions and candidates for municipal offices.

Republican U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins and Democratic nominee Margie Wakefield, the two most prominent candidates for the 2nd District congressional seat, delivered closing messages to supporters in Topeka and eastern Kansas cities from Oklahoma to Nebraska.

“I know we’ve asked a lot of you over the past few months,” Jenkins said. “But now we have one final request — vote.”

“I got into this race, not as a career politician, but as an advocate,” Wakefield said. “We’re in need of someone who can resolve differences between polarized, political divides, and that’s what I’ll do in Washington.”

Millions of dollars were invested in television, radio and direct-mail advertising to transform elections for Senate and governor into costly experiments in political persuasion. In the governor’s race, the Center for Public Integrity estimated the Davis and Brownback campaigns and outside political groups would combine to spend $11 million on TV commercials.

Money was poured into questionable marketing binges that promoted the idea candidates embraced child pornography, were too old, too rich or too unsophisticated to capably serve the public, favored sex-selection abortions, hated school children or worked to free sadistic killers from prison.

Glare of the spotlight has been steadily fixed on bouts between Orman and Roberts and Brownback and Davis. The foursome consumed most of Kansas’ political oxygen since the August primary.

On Monday, they stuck with standard themes punctuated by late-developing attack angles.

“Kansans know Washington is broke, and they know Senator Roberts is part of the problem,” said Jim Jonas, Orman’s campaign manager.

Orman’s campaign faulted Roberts for skipping Senate committee hearings on the same days he found time to attend political fundraisers. Roberts’ campaign criticized Orman for referring to the series of Republican luminaries endorsing the senator as characters popping out of a “Washington establishment clown car.”

“Tomorrow’s election is so important and why we’re reminded that a vote for Greg Orman is a vote for President Obama and Harry Reid,” Roberts said.

Roberts and Brownback, who have served the past two decades in either Topeka or Washington, were met in 2014 by challengers with resources and a message capable of peeling away Republican votes.

The Senate race boiled down to a debate about partisan Washington gridlock. Roberts, who narrowly survived a GOP primary against tea party champion Milton Wolf, focused the general election on critiques of Obama and the potential of stripping power from Senate Majority Leader Reid, a Democrat.

He squeezed endorsements from tea party leaders and Bill Snyder, the football coach at Kansas State University. Controversy ensued when K-State officials and Snyder asked for the ad to be withdrawn. Roberts’ campaign declined and promised it would run its course Sunday, but still had it airing Monday in Wichita.

Orman’s campaign distributed blame more widely at the feet of Democrats and Republicans who appeared more interested in winning elections than performing important work of the federal government.

“It’s almost a pure toss-up," said Burdette Loomis, a political science professor at The University of Kansas. “Roberts is not as disliked as Brownback. Orman, without a ‘D’ behind his name, is at least as attractive a candidate as Davis.”

The Senate race was influenced by withdrawal in September of Democratic nominee Chad Taylor, the district attorney in Shawnee County.

Brownback, who devoted time Monday to campaigning in Garden Plain, Derby and Andover, is in a re-election race that hinges on public assessment of the governor’s tax, budget and economic vision.

In 2010, Brownback won in the GOP-heavy state with 63 percent of the vote. He viewed that result as a mandate for change. With large GOP majorities in the House and Senate, the governor signed big income tax cuts, deleted aid of the arts, privatized Medicaid, signed abortion restrictions, targeted the judiciary for overhaul and approved a bill stripping K-12 teachers of tenure.

His supply-side economic strategy — the state paid $70,000 to consultant Arthur Laffer — was to elevate the Kansas economy by countering hundreds of millions of dollars in income tax revenue losses with swift job expansion. However, state tax revenue has fallen below expectations in five of the seven past months.

“The governor’s election is a referendum on everything about Sam Brownback — from A to Z,” said Bob Beatty, a professor of political science at Washburn University in Topeka.

Davis and Libertarian Party nominee Keen Umbehr have discounted Brownback’s term as governor as an experiment gone bad. Davis enlisted the help of about 180 moderate Republicans — some of the same GOP lawmakers Brownback helped expel from office in 2012 — in his campaign.

In the congressional races, U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., was competing against Democrat Kelly Kultala, a former state senator, in the 3rd District of Johnson and Wyandotte counties.

U.S. Reps. Tim Huelskamp and Mike Pompeo, both Republicans, defeated potent primary challengers and now faced poorly finance Democrats. Huelskamp is on the 1st District ballot against Democrat James Sherow, a former Manhattan mayor. In Wichita, the 4th District contest is between Democrat Perry Schuckman and Pompeo.

Insight Kansas, a polling aggregation project at Washburn University, offered updated results Monday of the most recent five independent, scientific polls of Kansas contests.

Polling suggested Davis had an average lead of 3 points over Brownback. Orman possessed a narrowing 0.8 point margin over Roberts.

Attorney General Derek Schmidt, a Republican seeking a second term, was ahead of Democratic opponent A.J. Kotich by an average of 24.2 points.

Secretary of State Kris Kobach was up 4.8 points on Democratic nominee Jean Schodorf, while Republican insurance commission candidate Ken Selzer was ahead 13.6 points on Democratic opponent Dennis Anderson. In the state treasurer’s race, incumbent Republican Ron Estes was ahead by 22.7 points over challenger Carmen Alldritt.