TOPEKA, Kansas — Last year, before Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to strip abortion rights from the state constitution, state Rep. Carl Turner had a short line on his website touting his anti-abortion stance.
“I support life including the unborn,” it read, according to Wayback Machine, a site which archives older versions of websites.
However, as Turner runs for reelection in the amendment’s aftermath, his website has scrubbed any mention of abortion. In an interview, the Leawood Republican claimed that the change was not conscious policy decision on his part, contending that the change had made by his campaign team as it revamped his website for the reelection fight against Democrat Ace Allen.
“I think Kansans are comfortable kind of where we’re at on that issue with the current— whatever you want to call it — limits,” Turner said of abortion.
But Turner is hardly alone among Kansas Republicans in de-emphasizing abortion in the wake of the landslide August vote.
Some Republican candidates for the Kansas House have done little to tout endorsements by Kansans for Life, the state’s most prominent anti-abortion advocacy group. Others have removed or altered campaign messaging that had taken a harder line ahead of the Nov. 8 general election.
Of the 20 Republican state legislative candidates in Johnson County that Kansans for Life endorsed ahead of the general election, only five promote the endorsement on their campaign website — Adam Turk, Cathy Gordon, state Rep. John Resman, state Rep. Sean Tarwater and Robyn Essex.
State Rep. Owen Donahoe, a Shawnee Republican, removed the endorsement from his website after the primary. Donahoe did not return a phone call.
The economy has loomed large over the election, with Republicans attacking Democrats over high inflation. But the Kansas abortion vote and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade has Democrats betting abortion access will give them an edge in closely-fought statehouse races.
“What I’m hearing from my constituents at the doors and on the phones is that Roe v. Wade was a wake up call. They completely understand that their right to bodily autonomy and to have the right to choose are at stake,” said state Rep. Jo Ella Hoye, a Lenexa Democrat.
Hoye’s challenger, Republican Emily Carpenter, removed a line about being “proud to be pro-life” and supportive of the amendment from her campaign website’s home page. She added a new page to her website, which is not prominently advertised, that describes her abortion position in detail, emphasizing the exceptions she supports — a list that includes life of the mother, rape, incest and fetal abnormalities which make life outside the womb impossible.
“The issue of abortion has always been a topic of which there are many diverse points of view - while politics often unfortunately enters the discussion, it is an issue that should be viewed through a lens of compassion and care for all involved, including the unborn child and the mother carrying the baby,” Carpenter wrote.
As Democrats lean into abortion, state Rep. William Sutton, a Gardner Republican running for re-election, doesn’t think the strategy will succeed. However, he is also critical of Republican colleagues who have run away from the issue. Sutton himself isn’t campaigning on abortion, but he said he has never campaigned on the issue.
“A person should run on their own values and if you change your values to get elected you shouldn’t be running for office,” Sutton said.
Democrats need to pick up three seats to take Republicans under the 84-seat threshold in the Kansas House that allows GOP lawmakers to override vetoes in the 125-member chamber. Republicans have had a two-thirds supermajority since the 2010 election.
Eliminating the supermajority could have huge consequences if Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is re-elected to a second term, ensuring she will be able to successfully block GOP-led legislation.
During Kelly’s first term, Republicans have overridden the governor’s vetoes of election legislation and have restricted her ability to make changes to the state’s Medicaid program.
It would also prevent Republicans from placing another abortion-related amendment before voters — a possibility some Democrats have raised on the campaign trail. Top Republican leaders have given no indication of any plan to advance another amendment next year.
In interviews, Democrats say the Aug. 2 abortion vote, which produced record turnout for a primary election in Kansas, energized both candidates and voters. Six of seven Kansas Supreme Court justices standing for retention in November adds to the argument that abortion remains on the ballot, even if the amendment isn’t.
Republicans have long had the upper hand on the abortion issue in Kansas and have been able to chip away at abortion access over time, but they are now on the defensive in some districts, especially in Johnson County, a former GOP stronghold that has been trending toward Democrats in recent elections.
Johnson County could determine if GOP supermajority holds
Johnson County, the state’s most populous, rejected the amendment 69% to 31%. Patrick Miller, a University of Kansas political scientist, said the question of the supermajority, and whether the Democratic strategy will work, lies with areas like Johnson County.
“Given that realistically, every competitive legislative district is in the suburbs, abortion probably has some potential to help Democrats there, if Democrats are campaigning on it, or if it’s just broadly engaging women. Outside of that, I mean, we know who’s gonna win the races and almost every other district in the state,” Miller said.
Some Johnson County Republican candidates, fighting to win in an area that has grown more Democratic in recent elections, have changed how they speak about abortion.
Carpenter, a small business owner, told The Star for its primary election voter guide that she had been endorsed by Kansans for Life and that “the abortion industry is unrestricted in Kansas” — a false statement because abortion clinics must adhere to state regulations.
But for The Star’s general election voter guide, Carpenter adopted a new tone, dropping the line about an unregulated abortion industry and instead highlighting her support for maintaining current restrictions. She said a “complete ban on abortion is not something Kansans support nor would I advocate for it as a member of the Legislature.”
“We should work to ensure the commonsense protections for women and the unborn that are currently in law, and backed by a vast majority of Kansans, remain in place,” Carpenter said. “I also strongly support including exceptions in the case of rape, incest, life of the mother, and fetal abnormalities which make life outside the womb impossible.”
Carpenter didn’t respond to phone calls for this story.
Allen, the Democrat who is challenging incumbent Turner in the Leawood district, has pointed to Turner’s decision to vote for the amendment as a key reason voters should reject him. Turner won the district by around 900 votes in 2020, but Allen said he believes those votes can be flipped.
“He ran on bipartisanship, he ran on a lot of things that it turns out when he actually went to vote on things he was not nearly as bipartisan or moderate as he sounded,” Allen said.
Kansas House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat, acknowledged national politics can affect statehouse races, but said the amendment vote “gave a lot of spirit” to Democratic candidates, he said, predicting Democrats have a good chance of eliminating the GOP supermajority.
“We saw a record turnout in a primary and I think a lot of those voters who don’t normally vote in primaries, who don’t normally vote in midterm elections, are going to vote again in November. I think this issue has brought them out the polls,” Sawyer said.
Republican candidates craft careful message on abortion
As the Nov. 8 election approaches, the campaign websites of several Republican candidates in Johnson County include nearly identical paragraph-length explanations of their abortion stances. The similar statements oppose abortion but support exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
One of the candidates with a website containing the statement, Carrie Rahfaldt, a Republican running for the seat currently held by Democratic state Rep. Mari-Lynn Poskin, said she didn’t have time to speak with a reporter. But in a text message, Rahfaldt said voters are worried about the economy and grocery bills, “not how many seats each party controls.”
Kris Van Meteren, a longtime GOP consultant, said he has encouraged his clients to continue speaking about abortion even as they include it in the mix with inflation, crime and other kitchen table issues.
“My encouragement to people is if this is something you sincerely believe you’re gonna come off as a big phony if you couldn’t declare your love for the prolife loudly enough before the value them both vote and then run and hide and try to distance yourself from the life community afterward,” Van Meteren said.
“If it’s something you truly believe then you’re just going to have to be prepared to defend it and if it costs you somewhat politically, I’m sorry about that but there are lives at stake.”
Some Republicans don’t see much value in emphasizing abortion, however. For The Star’s general election voter guide, state Rep. Matt Bingesser, an Olathe Republican, said the Legislature “is not likely to have much impact, if any at all, on abortion policy during the next legislative session.”
Bingesser’s seat was won by the Republican incumbent by around 300 votes in 2020.
Mike Kuckelman, Kansas Republican Party chairman, said abortion isn’t on the November ballot. He contends statehouse races will be referendums on Kelly and Biden.
“The question becomes, who do you want to put in Topeka in the House this election?” Kuckelman said. “Are they going to support Gov. Kelly who has demonstrated in her actions that she is a subscriber to the Biden policies?”
Stephanie Sharp, a Johnson County based consultant who works with moderate candidates, said the Kansas voters who rejected the amendment could carry a lot of power if they turned out again in November. But she didn’t think they would.
Some voters who get excited to vote for something and then win may think the issue is fixed, she said, especially unaffiliated voters and those who don’t typically show up for midterm elections.
Sharp noted that had the people who turned out to reject the amendment been voting all along, the measure would likely have never made it on the ballot in the first place — the makeup of the Legislature, which approved the amendment, would have been different.
A single issue is motivating, she said. “Once you get into candidates, it’s a lot more gray.”
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