The Republican candidate for Kansas governor is pivoting from education to crime as a focus in the final weeks of the campaign, portraying the Democratic incumbent as anti-police because she created a commission on policing and racial justice in response to the state's protests following the death of George Floyd in 2020.
GOP challenger Derek Schmidt, the state's three-term attorney general, launched a new television ad Thursday against Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly after suggesting during a debate Wednesday that she has largely ignored crime as an issue. In what is expected to be a close race, Schmidt is adopting a tactic used by Republicans across the U.S., and his new ad features video of violence during protests in New York City that followed the police killing of Floyd in Minneapolis.
