Governor Laura Kelly’s celebrated “Middle Of The Road” political action committee christened with the mission to support “moderate” candidates for Kansas office in last month’s election raised more money, spent more money, and lost more races than any other filers among last-minute campaign reports released recently.
While “moderation” was the operative theme in Kelly’s campaign support effort, campaign finance reports filed by candidates for Kansas office showed those donations only went to Democrats – and without much success overall in an election that saw Republicans strengthen their veto-proof majority in the Legislature.
Regular Political Action Committee (PAC) campaign finance reports were due on Oct. 28 covering activity through Oct. 24, but any contribution to a PAC of $300 or more, or any independent expenditure of $300 or more, for the period Oct. 25 through Nov. 3, had to be part of a “last minute” filing before the Nov. 5 election.
Considerable money was reported this year in “last minute” reports. How might these reports reflect what happened in the overall Kansas senate and house races?
Here’s a summary of the contributions and independent expenditures reported in “last minute” PAC reports this year:
Let’s break out the independent expenditures to candidates.
Independent Expenditures on Candidates
Per election Kansas Political Action Committees can give up to $1000 to a senate candidate, but only $500 to a house candidate.
But PACs have no limits on their independent expenditures to support or oppose candidates.
Kansas Senate
The Middle of the Road PAC spent $89,518 in last minute expenditures in losing five senate contests, while Keep Kansas Red PAC spent $7353 to win all five.
Huge amounts of money were spent earlier in these contests by these and other PACs, which will be the subject of a future article.
The Senate 5 race was very close in unofficial results but the Sunflower State Journal reports “Klemp emerges victorious in narrow District 5 race.”
Other senate contests above were in Johnson County where official final results are available online.
The State of Kansas certified statewide election results on Monday but has not posted them online as of this writing.
Kansas House
Official election results were used in the contests in Johnson County, while the statewide unofficial results were used to make the won/lost calls above.
In three contests PACs spent money for and against candidates. In two of those cases the Lift Up Kansas PAC spent money both to support the winning candidate and to oppose the losing opponent.
In House district 102 incumbent Jason Probst saw two PACs spend money supporting his opponent and one PAC spending on a negative ad against him.
Negative ads worked in all three cases. Republicans prevailed in 17 of the 18 contests.
Only Democrat Nikki McDonald won a “last minute” battle. But she won Johnson County House District 49 by a mere 148 votes.
Johnson County
Three Johnson County Commissioner candidates benefited from “last minute” independent expenditures by the Amberwave PAC.
JoCo Board Chair of County Commissioners Mike Kelly is the spokesperson for this PAC even though he is not the PAC chair or treasurer.
These “last minute” expenditures were to help the slate of Democratic candidates running for county commission seats.
In the regular PAC report filed on Oct. 28 Amberwave reported spending over $30,000 on each of the three Democratic candidates, which dwarfed the “last minute” expenditure.
Incumbent Republican County Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara blamed her loss on the Amberwave expenditures to help her opponent, Julie Brewer.
PAC Performance
Republicans PACs faired well in their “last minute” expenditure performance based on election results.
The Lift Up Kansas PAC and the Right Future for Kansas PAC won 100% (6 of 6 and 5 of 5) of the contests they made independent expenditures in, while Keep Kansas Red PAC was close behind with 85% (12 of 14). The Kansas Chamber PAC won 83% (5 of 6).
Yes We Kansas PAC won 14% (1 of 7) of its contests, while the Gov. Laura Kelly’s Middle of the Road PAC did not win a contest (0 of 9).
Gov. Kelly is not the chair or treasurer of Middle of the Road PAC, but she is its spokesperson.
Related
 | Middle of the Road PAC spent nearly half million on a dozen Democratic legislative candidatesEARL F GLYNN·OCT 30Read full story |
| Report shows “Middle of the Road PAC” is on the left side of the roadEARL F GLYNN·JAN 18Read full story |
Check online for revisions and updates.
Earl Glynn – Watchdog Lab
Earl F. Glynn is a mostly-retired data scientist, scientific programmer, software engineer and physical scientist living in the Kansas City metro area, and the publisher of the substack Watchdog Lab.
