(Updated to include comment from the Weir campaign).
Former Kansas Republican Party Chairwoman Amanda Adkins plans to launch her candidacy for Congress next month, according to text messages obtained by the Sunflower State Journal.
Adkins is expected to announce her campaign for the Kansas 3rd Congressional District seat at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 9 at the Prairiefire Museum in southern Overland Park, according to text messages sent to Republicans across the district.
The texts were sent by Alana Roethle, former secretary of the Kansas Republican Party and a longtime Adkins’ friend.
Roethle declined to comment any further late Monday night. Adkins could not be reached for comment Monday.
Adkins’ candidacy will set up a primary with political newcomer Sara Hart Weir, who announced her congressional campaign last month. Weir recently became part of the National Republican Committee’s Young Guns program, which mentors and supports candidates who have met certain benchmarks such as campaign organization.
Adkins and Weir are vying to challenge Democrat Sharice Davids, who won a seat in the U.S. House last year when a record number of women were elected to Congress.
Adkins has been positioning to run for Congress for months, starting as early as last fall when word started circulating that she was putting out feelers about running for Congress.
The Sunflower State Journal first reported a possible Adkins candidacy last December when she first hinted she’d run.
“I can confirm after the election that I received many calls from various leaders asking me to run for public office,” Adkins said in an email.
“Right now I am very focused on my business career in healthcare. However, I can also confirm my commitment to explore the topic with my family.”
Her interest gained momentum by this summer when she met with local high-powered donors.
She confirmed in May she was exploring a run after meeting with 35 business and community leaders, including construction executive Terry Dunn, Cerner co-founder Cliff Illig, lawyer Fred Logan and development lawyer John Petersen.
Washburn University political scientist Bob Beatty said two female candidates could be a positive for Republicans in a district where women voters may have been turned off by the GOP brand last year because of President Donald Trump.
“What Weir and Adkins are hoping is that they can swing that seat back by getting women who voted for Sharice Davids – many of whom are moderate Republicans – to come back,” he said. “They’re going to be appealing to those moderate Republican women and there are a lot of them in that district.
“In that district, it’s advantage to have a female candidate,” Beatty said. “If you’re talking about a man during this election, I’d say maybe he’d want to rethink that.”
Weir’s political adviser, Pat Leopold, sidestepped a question about Adkins’ candidacy on Tuesday.
“Sara’s focused on running a winning campaign that will win not only next August, but also in November 2020 against Sharice Davids,” Leopold said.
“As a former CEO, she has built the right team around her to do just that,” he said. “Kansas Republicans who are interested in making Sharice Davids a one-term KS-3 representative are flocking to Sara because they know Sara’s the only candidate who beat Davids.”
Adkins is seen two different ways by Republicans who want to win back the 3rd District seat.
Some worry about her political background.
She chaired the state Republican Party at the height of former Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration.
During Adkins’ tenure as state party chairwoman, the GOP gained 16 seats in the Kansas Legislature during the 2010 midterm elections and Brownback swept into office.
She steered Brownback’s re-election campaign to the U.S. Senate 2004. Brownback, later as governor, appointed Adkins to the Kansas Children’s Cabinet. She also worked as executive director for GOPAC.
Others see Adkins as a successful businesswoman who would know how to build a campaign and tap into donors quickly.
They believe the Cerner executive – and a mom – would be seen as more of a pragmatist than a conservative ideologue.
Beatty said a key question for Adkins will be the public mood toward Brownback, who was one of the least popular governors in the country when he left office in 2018.
The former governor is still part of the political dialogue in Topeka where his name constantly surfaces in the context of tax cuts blamed for leaving holes in the state budget and other sweeping changes he made in welfare and abortion laws.
“We don’t know how long the negative effects of being associated with Brownback are going to last,” he said. “They may be gone. They may not.”
Regardless of who wins the Republican primary, Davids looms as a tough candidate to be beat.
She has been piling up money this year, raising $461,000 in the first quarter and following that up with $476,000 in the second quarter. She has about $750,000 in the bank.
University of Kansas political scientist Patrick Miller recently wrote on Twitter that he thought Davids was positioned to be re-elected next year.
“Defeating her in a district that voted for Clinton, where Trump is likely quite unpopular and that swung hard to ‘Ds’ in 2018 may be a tall task,” he wrote.
