Republicans on Saturday picked an activist who has promoted unfounded election conspiracy theories and promised a shakeup to lead the Kansas GOP for the next two years, reflecting acrimony in the party across America.
Within 30 minutes of a change in leadership of the Kansas Republican Party, its state committee reviewed a resolution demanding that the US House impeach President Joe Biden for the “tyranny” he and his allies have committed in the summer of 2021. misinformed about the spread of coronavirus vaccines. within the GOP. The committee tabled the proposal till the next meeting.
The Kansas State Committee selected Mike Brown, who has long been active in the GOP in the Kansas City area, as its new chair through the 2024 elections. The vote came after three months of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly narrowly won re-election and the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids won another term in her Kansas City-area district.
The Kansas party’s retiring chair, Mike Kuckelman, and two of its other Republican National Committee members endorsed RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel after she won re-election last month. But Brown asked McDaniel to resign in December, and he said Saturday that the national GOP is seeing an internal “revolt” from members still troubled by COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
“The RNC needs to focus a lot on that,” Brown said. “This is the future of our party.”
Last year, Brown ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination for Kansas Secretary of State. Both she and her opponent, Helen Van Etten, a longtime Topeka activist, and former RNC member, promised to revitalize the Kansas party. But Brown asked fellow Republicans if they were happy with the results of the last two gubernatorial races won by Kelly and David’s election victory.
The vote – 90-88 with Brown prevailing – took place against a backdrop of the GOP’s unexpectedly poor showing in the 2022 midterms, when it won fewer U.S. seats than expected. House seats won and U.S. The Senate failed to win a majority.
In Kansas, the GOP has a voter registration advantage, meaning that Democrats win major races by drawing votes from moderate Republicans and independent voters, while Republicans generally prevail when the party is unified.
“We need more unity,” Wichita Republican state representative Patrick Penn told GOP committee members. “That’s the crux of it.”
Some Republicans framed the fight between Brown and Van Etten as a battle between an anti-establishment wing and the establishment.
The infighting ahead of Saturday’s vote was especially intense in Johnson County in the Kansas City area, the state’s most populous county and home to both Brown and retired state Speaker Mike Kuckelman. The county’s affluent suburbs were once GOP bastions, but since 2018, they have become markedly more Democratic — and have been key to Kelly and David’s victories.
The new chair of the Johnson County GOP, a Brown aide concerned about the “purple creep” of the county, told GOP state committee members that Kukelman was “absolutely disgusted” at Brown’s treatment of him. Kukelman retaliated with several emails, including one accusing Brown of opposing abortion and supporting gun rights.
With the Republican National Committee, McDaniel overcame opposition from the ultra-Make America Great Again wing of the party, despite being selected for the job by former President Donald Trump in 2016.
In Michigan, two statewide GOP candidates who denied President Joe Biden an election victory in 2020 were seeking party offices ahead of a convention next weekend. Last year in Nebraska, Trump-supporting Republicans booed the state chair during a tumultuous convention following the Trump-endorsed candidate’s loss in the GOP primary for governor.
Brown has promoted unfounded theories that Trump supporters have used to support the former president’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. He is a construction contractor who served on the Johnson County Commission before losing his seat in 2020.
Brown lost to GOP primary Republican incumbent Scott Schwab for secretary of state, who has affirmed the integrity of Kansas elections.
Van Etten, a retired audiologist, served on the RNC from 2008 to 2020. She is also a former member of the state board that oversees Kansas’ higher education system.
He promised members of the state committee a “very aggressive” program for building local party organizations: “We are ready and willing to unite the party.”
One supporter, conservative Kansas City-area economist, researcher, and consultant Michael Austin, said: “We need experience. We need a connection.
During the state committee meeting, Kukelman defended the record of the current party leaders, noting that the party owed no debt.
Kim Borchers, a longtime Topeka activist who serves at the RNC, defended McDaniel and pointedly pushed back on the complaints against the party establishment. They had state committee members with more than five years of experience.
“Welcome to the establishment,” she said. “I call that commitment.”