(Update to include comment from Van Eetten)
After playing up the possibility for months, former Johnson County commissioner and secretary of state candidate Mike Brown officially announced his candidacy to lead the Kansas Republican Party late Tuesday.
In a Facebook post late Tuesday night, Brown made his candidacy official, although it’s been widely expected he would run for the seat given the frustrations he’s voiced on social media about the current Republican Party leadership.
He’s running against former Republican National Committeewoman Helen Van Etten, who officially announced her candidacy for the position last summer.
“Every decision I make as your next KSGOP Chairman will be considered through this simple lense,” Brown said on Facebook.
“If you want and crave a fresh vision and a new path, a repaired KSGOP image and a leader who will deliver the KSGOP back to an ‘EXPECTS TO WIN’ footing and mentality, then Mike Brown is your clear choice for KSGOP Chairman,” he wrote.
Brown blames outgoing chairman Mike Kuckelman and other Republican Party leaders for losing races for Congress in the 3rd District, the election of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and what he called the “cataclysmic implosion” of the constitutional amendment on abortion.
“All of these failures, and there are many more, are the legacy of Kuckelman and the Kansas Republican establishment. I want no part of these failures… and the vast majority of Kansas Republicans are done with this nonsense too,” he wrote.
“To be sure, it’s easy to be down hearing what a disaster the KSGOP truly is – but there is good news,” he said.
“We have a chance to put the days of the thundering parade of the Mighty Kansas Pachyderm once again in front of us.
“Our best days are in our future and consistent winning is just around the corner.”
Brown is coming off an unsuccessful primary challenge to Secretary of State Scott Schwab, losing to the incumbent by about 11 percentage points.
Brown ran his campaign by questioning Kansas elections without any hard or specific evidence of voter fraud in Kansas.
If he had been elected, Brown promised to eliminate mail ballot drop boxes and return to prosecuting voter fraud similar to former Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
He also said the election system needed to be reinvented, including the possibility of only allowing voting by paper.
He was endorsed in the secretary of state’s race by 1970s rocker Ted Nugent.
Van Etten’s roots in the Kansas Republican politics run deep.
She served three terms as Republican National Committeewoman for Kansas starting in 2008. She also served on the Kansas Board of Regents from 2013 to 2021.
She has endorsements from U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, U.S. Reps. Jake LaTurner and Ron Estes, Senate President Ty Masterson, incoming House Speaker Dan Hawkins as well as national committeeman Mark Kahrs and national committeewoman Kim Borchers.
“We’re in a very critical situation. We need to work as fast as we can to get everybody united,” Van Etten said in an interview.
“That’s not a bad word. According to Mke Brown that’s a bad word,” she said.
“I think we all believe there is room for working together.
“We are a conservative party. That’s never going to be changed.
“We want to promote our conservative values, but we also have got to win elections to promote that.
“How are you going to promote that if you don’t have anybody that doesn’t have a seat at the table to be able to advocate for certain ideas or beliefs?
“When you communicate with people, you find out everybody has their own core belief, sometimes it’s not a bridge too far to reach. All you have to do is open communication channels,” she said.
“Instead of to say ‘You don’t believe like I do so I don’t want to include you in my camp,’ then your camp is getting smaller and smaller.”
The election will not be held until the state Republican Party convention in February.
The party is coming off an election in which Republicans lost one seat in the Kansas House with the help of Democrats flipping three seats in parts of Johnson County that have traditionally been more conservative.
Kelly edged Republican Attorney General Derek Schmidt to win reelection and carried Johnson County by about 50,000 votes, which contributed to her victory.
Johnson County hasn’t been electorally friendly to Brown either.
He lost his reelection bid to the Johnson County Commission to Shirley Allenbrand in 2020 with 47% of the vote after representing the southwest corner of the county that tends to trend more conservative.
