Kansas Megathread: Kobach and Kelly and Orman, Oh My!

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Tmth projection: Vicki Schmidt wins GOP nomination for Insurance Commissioner. Moderate defeats conservative.

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Colyer maintains small lead.

Governor (R)
Precincts Reporting:
1505 of 3539
Candidate   Votes   
Jim Barnett   14,624   
Jeff Colyer   64,150   
Kris Kobach   62,053   
Patrick "PK" Kucera   1,402   
Tyler Ruzich   965   
Ken Selzer   12,267   
Joseph Tutera Jr.   675   

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Colyer at 72% on Predictit

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Nothing more has came from JoCo - there were some voting booth issues today so it may be a while.

Governor (R)
Precincts Reporting:
1927 of 3539
Candidate   Votes   
Jim Barnett   17,040   
Jeff Colyer   76,891   
Kris Kobach   76,303   
Patrick "PK" Kucera   1,651   
Tyler Ruzich   1,113   
Ken Selzer   14,723   
Joseph Tutera Jr.

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Colyer is up by ~900 but Crawford County is messed up on Politico by about ~900 votes, so the race is essentially a tie.

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Shoutout to Ken Selzer for winning a county.

Home county for his Lt. Governor candidate.

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Why is Johnson taking so long to count? This this typical?

Nothing more has came from JoCo - there were some voting booth issues today so it may be a while.

But yes, this is typical.

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Also, FWIW, in the past JoCo has essentially dumped all of the vote at one time, so it shouldn't be a slow trickle. Once they report, we'll have a pretty good idea.

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I'd like for KKK to edge ahead before the JoCo dump so his supporters can claim voter fraud for Colyer edging it out.

That is probably what will happen.

Since Crawford looks like an error, he probably is slightly ahead right now.

Yes, you are correct. They need to add roughly 900 votes to Kobach.

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Looks like those 900+ votes were just added. Kobach in the lead by 0.3% with Johnson County still where it's been for awhile.

No, it isn't fixed yet. Unsure what % of JoCo voted early, that'll be key. Outside of JoCo, the map looks pretty even, maybe a slight edge to Colyer. Kobach is probably up by around 1500 votes right now.

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Republican Primary
40.7%   Kris Kobach   98,252   
40.5%   Jeff Colyer*   97,732

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Is Colyer likely to maintain his 15% margin in Johnston, or will it tighten considerably? The only way Kobach wins is if Johnston tightens quite a bit.

It'll tighten but Colyer will still gain votes, I just don't know how many.

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I just heard on TV that around 1/3 of people voted early. Using that number, if he matches early voting he'll gain about 5,000 votes. If he only wins by around 10% in the county (my guess) he still nets ~2,500. I refuse to say whether or not that will be enough because I don't want to jinx anything.

JoCo is slowly starting to come in, Colyer ups his margin in the county by around 800 votes.

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Crawford County has (finally) been fixed, here are the statewide numbers:
40.7%   Kris Kobach   105,653   
40.6%   Jeff Colyer*   105,295

Kobach may gain a little bit from counties outside of JoCo, but Colyer should gain a large chunk from JoCo. Still way too early to call, we won't know until JoCo comes in.

We have new voting machines, the computers that are tabulating the results is coming in very slow.

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JoCo Elections Officer just said 2-3 hours until we’ll know the full results lol

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662 precincts remaining statewide. 492 in JoCo

40.8%   Kris Kobach   106,237   
40.6%   Jeff Colyer*   105,803   

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JoCo Elections Officer just said 2-3 hours until we’ll know the full results lol

Lmao.

Yeah, they're practically trying to give Kobach ammunition to cry foul.

Quality troll

Not saying there'd actually be any substance. But I'm willing to bet Kobach points this out if he does lose and then cry "muh voter fraud"

You are correct, if Kobach loses you will hear cries of voter fraud from his supporters. That being said, if he pulls this off, they'll be saying that elections are accurate because of the terrific work of our SoS.

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Excepting remaining precincts to give Colyer a lead going into the morning but there’s still a lot of game left to play. No one should be  declaring victory tomorrow.

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40.6%   Kris Kobach   126,257   
40.5%   Jeff Colyer*   126,066

There will be recounts, also provisional ballots which should favor Colyer but we’ll see.

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What the heck? 191 votes? Someone tell me again every vote doesn't count.

If there is a recount, who will most likely benefit?

There were over 6000 provisional votes, I'm not sure who that will benefit.


Basically this is what happened last night: Colyer outperformed Early Vote and overall just exceeded expectations, leading many to believe that he would pull it out...only for him to under-perform on JoCo Election Day vote. He won early vote in JoCo by 14 points but appears to only have won ED vote by 1-2 points. Even a small boost to that margin and he'd be claiming victory right now.

JoCo had a lot of irregularities and I'm hopeful that any recount there will benefit Colyer since his margin was surprisingly small. No one is going to request  recount, though, until all provisional ballots are in. That won't be under Friday at the earliest, most likely Monday.

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So when are the provisional ballots expected to come in?

Deadline for them to come in is Friday, so results will probably be announced Friday evening or Monday.

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I wish Kansas had a jungle primary. Opposition against Kobach wouldn't be divided.

Well, the general election would be Colyer vs. Kobach if Kansas had the same primary as California does. A run-off like in Texas or Georgia would be interesting, but Kobach would probably win the second round.

It's tough to say, I think if it were a head-to-head race yesterday, Colyer would have won quite comfortably, but if there was a runoff in a couple weeks where Trump could potentially tweet more or even visit, that could sway it.

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I can see that argument for Congress as majorities are at stake, but I don't see the obsession with "weakest possible nominee" argument for Gubernatorial races.

Generally speaking, I want each state in the union to be successful and hope that the best nominees are put forward. For almost all of you, whether or not Kobach or Colyer is the nominee and whether or not Kansas has a GOP or DEM governor will have almost no impact on your life, so why not want just each party to put their best possible candidate forward? Unless people are just hacks who only cares about your party winning as many elections as possible.

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BREAKING NEWS

https://twitter.com/Melissa_Brunner/status/1027623137398145025

Margin down to 91 votes with 8-10k provisional ballots left to be counted.

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BREAKING NEWS

https://twitter.com/Melissa_Brunner/status/1027623137398145025

Margin down to 91 votes with 8-10k provisional ballots left to be counted.

You KNOW Kobach is going to cry fraud if this changes the outcome, lol.

Are provisional ballots expected to favor one candidate over the other?

This is mostly heresay, but I've heard that provisional ballots generally are people who are younger and less rural, which would benefit Colyer. The remaining absentee voters should also favor Colyer - most of those votes will have been before the Trump endorsement and Colyer won the early vote by several points.

I'd certainly rather be ahead by 91 votes than behind, but at this point I think it is way too premature to call Kobach the presumptive nominee, it could still easily change.