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Targeted and likely close state senate races are the battleground contests over control of the Kansas Senate. How is new voter registration used as a tactic to affect these contests?
This article looks at the new voter registration by political party from 2007 through early Sept 2008 for state senate races that are likely to be close. A PDF file shows the new voter profiles for each of the 40 State Senate districts.
Analysis of new voter registration for selected state senate contests that are expected to be close in these Left-vs-Right battles:
Senate 3: G. Tom Holland (D-Baldwin City, KS House 10) vs. Roger Pine (Incumbent, R-Lawrence). New voter graphic.
This race is between a Democrat and a “moderate” Republican. Slightly less than half the voters are from Douglas County.
The new voter profile charts for 2007 and 2008 are fairly consistent with more Unaffiliated voters in both years, and the Democrat-Republican new voter registration being quite close. In 2007 404 new Republicans registered while 358 new Democrats registered, but in 2008 the edge switched with 534 new Ds and 521 new Rs. New voter registration is likely to have minimal impact on this contest.
Senate 5: Kelly Kultala (D-Kansas City) vs. Steve Fitzgerald (R-Leavenworth). New voter graphic (shown below).
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Kelly Kultala was Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ hand-picked choice and knocked out prolife, conservative Democrat Mark Gilstrap in the August Democratic primary. This is an “open” seat without an incumbent. Steve Fitzgerald narrowly lost his bid for this Senate Seat in 2004.
While new voter registration in 2007 was split between Democrats and Republicans, the new Ds in 2008 (770) may give Kultala a slight edge over Fitzgerald and the new Rs in 2008 (483) in a close race.
Senate 9: Ron Wimmer (D-Olathe) vs. Julia Lynn (R-Olathe). New voter graphic.
Ron Wimmer was superintendent of the Olathe School District (his 2004 salary was $227,790 according to the Topeka Capital-Journal). Wimmer joined other former Republicans Paul Morrison and Mark Parkinson in switching to the Democratic party. Julia Lynn beat Ron Wimmer 46 to 27 when she was picked by Republican precinct committee folks to replace retiring State Senator Kay O’Connor in late 2006, when Wimmer was still a Republican.
“Normal” new voter registration in 2007 gave an edge to Republicans (527) over Democrats (408). In 2008, Democrats held an early edge, but in the very Republican Olathe area, new Republican registration (611) still edged Democrats (611). The battle will be over the new Unaffiliated voters: 712 in 2007, and 821 so far in 2008.
Senate 10: Pete Roman (D-Lenexa) vs. Mary Pilcher Cook (R-Shawnee). New voter graphic.
Pete Roman is a Democratic Party activist and a perennial political candidate. Roman was an unsuccessful candidate for Shawnee Mission Board of Education in 2003, and an unsuccessful candidate for State Senate 10 in 2004. Roman has political connections to the Kansas Families for Education (formerly Kansas Families United for Public Education) [he owned their Internet domain name in 2005] and has been endorsed by far-left groups MAINstream Coalition, the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus, and the Kansas LGBT Democratic Caucus. In 2004 Roman accepted $500 from Planned Parenthood.
Mary Pilcher-Cook, a prolife conservative, battled Democrat Cindy Neighbor in House District 18 in recent years. Pilcher-Cook will face an uphill battle especially against the huge political war chest built by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.
Like in District 9, “normal” new voter registration in 2007 gave an edge to Republicans (466) over Democrats (350). But in 2008, Democrats enjoy in Senate 10 the edge with 569 new Ds and only 487 new Rs. The battle will be over the new Us: 676 in 2007 and 711 in 2008.
Senate 18: Laura Kelly (Incumbent, D-Topeka) vs. Jim Zeller (R-Topeka). New voter graphic.
Recently, Sebelius friend Laura Kelly took a fall literally and had then received help from Gov. Sebelius in her door-to-door campaign. [Sebelius hired Kelly's daughter last year through the Democratic Governor's Association's 527 PAC.] The pro-abortion group, Emily’s List, takes credit for helping elect both Sebelius and Kelly. Gov. Sebelius used the Kansas Executive Aircraft to take Laura Kelly to the NCAA basketball tournament earlier this year.
Jim Zeller, a prolife conservative, is a political newcomer. Zeller has served as a Kansas State Trooper, under-sheriff, municipal and magistrate judge.
In 2007 new voter registration was exactly split 187 to 187 between Democrats and Republicans. Sebelius’ influence on this district can be seen by the push for new Democratic voters in 2008: 575 new Ds with only 366 new Rs. New voter registration in this district would favor Laura Kelly in a close contest.
Senate 30: Elizabeth Bishop (D-Wichta) vs. Susan Wagle (Incumbent, R-Wichita). New voter graphic.
Elizabeth Bishop was the Democratic Caucus chair for District 30 earlier this year, and wrote an letter to the Wichita Eagle thanking “so much the citizens who participated…”
Susan Wagle is a well-known Kansas conservative, and was the Lt. Gov. candidate with Senator Jim Barnett in 2006.
In 2007 there appears to have been some sort of new voter registration drive in the second part of the year that benefit Rs and Us more than Ds. In 2006 there were 446 new Rs and only 294 new Ds in Senate 30. The Ds have a slight advantage so far this year with 887 new Ds and only 742 new Rs. Neither side has much of an advantage in this contest due to new voter registration.
Senate 32: Greta Goodwin (Incument, D-Arkansas City) vs. Steve Abrams (R-Stafford, former State Board of Ed ). New voter graphic.
Goodwin, a well-known liberal, will face Dr. Abrams, a well-known conservative in this contest.
Goodwin narrowly defeated Ray LaBoeuf in 2004 for this seat, and benefited from the Kansans for a Moderate Goverment, a PAC funded by Dr. Tiller’s ProKanDo PAC to hide the connection. The Oct 30 , 2004 Winfield Courier reported mailings by Kansans for a Moderate Government benefiting Goodwin, but the connection to Tiller’s ProKanDo PAC was not understood by many before the 2004 elections.
New voter registration in 2007 and 2008 in Senate District 32 favors Republicans. New Democrats and new Republicans were approximately tied until the August primary. But even with more Rs registering than new Ds, the battle will be for the new Unaffiliated voters in this district.
Methodology: Voters with a registration date after 12/31/2006 were extracted from the Sept 2, 2008 list of registered voters in Kansas, ONLY if they had no other August or November voting history (other than the Aug 2008 election). Unfortunately, some county clerks change the registration date if anything about a voter’s record is changed, and this method of selection ignored “old” voters. For this analysis, registration dates in the future (e.g., 5/27/2018, 8/13/2070, 1/8/2520, and 8/1/6200) were set to the date of the file, 9/2/2008. [NOTE: The Kansas Secretary of State REFUSES to act on most data problems reported in voter registration data — there is no known way to give the Kansas Secretary of State feedback so problems in the data file can be fixed.] Registration dates were converted to week index values within a year, and counted by week. A cumulative sum of all weeks was computed and plotted.
Click here to view PDF with new voter graphics for each of the 40 State Senate districts.
Feel free to study the new voter profiles in the various State Senate districts and post comments below.
Related:
- New Registered Voters by Kansas County, Kansas Meadowlark, Oct 4, 2008.
- Analysis of New Voters in Kansas by Congressional District, Kansas Meadowlark, Sept 29, 2008.
- More new Democrats than Republicans register to vote in Kansas in 2008, Kansas Meadowlark, Sept 25, 2008.
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