A Democratic primary is evolving in southwest Johnson County for the right to challenge Republican incumbent state Rep. Bill Sutton next fall.
Kristen Schultz, elected twice to the Gardner Edgerton School Board, is circulating a petition to secure enough signatures to get on the ballot next year.
She is running against Keith Davenport, who was just elected to the school board and is running a second time for the District 43 House seat.
In announcing her candidacy on Facebook, Schultz said she wanted to earn her place on the ballot.
“Filing by petition means asking neighbors to sign on, listen, and share what matters to them,” she wrote.
“Every signature is a conversation about our schools, public safety, affordability, and quality of life here at home,” she wrote.
“My campaign will be powered by community, not special interest groups.”
She will need to collect 105 signatures, which is the number equal to 2% of the 5,261 registered Democratic voters in the district.
In an interview, Schultz said she thought a primary would be healthy for the party.
“Primaries are a good thing,” she said.
“We deserve engaged representation. I think primaries are how we make sure we’re sending our strongest candidate forward.”
Schultz, who owns and operates a day care, has coordinated several political campaigns in recent years including three city council races, four school board races and two legislative races.
Schultz was first elected to the school board in 2015 with about 68% of the vote. Schultz was reelected to the school board with about 63% of the vote in 2019.
But she resigned three years later after she faced a series of personal attacks that she said she received amid difficult disagreements over COVID-19 protocols and other divisive education topics.
She was among four board members who resigned during the 2021-22 school year when four candidates who prevailed the preceding November gave conservatives a majority on the school board, The Kansas City Star reported.
“It’s about masking,” Schultz told the newspaper at the time about the community consternation. “And now we’ve opened this Pandora’s box of angry people, and they will continue being angry at whatever they can.”
She amplified on her reason for leaving the board in an interview this week.
“I just didn’t think I could make the kind of difference any longer that our students and teachers and our community deserved,” she said.
“It really had become less about good-faith governance and more about just argument and dissent and dishonesty,” she said.
“That environment took a real toll on my ability to serve effectively,” she said.
After resigning, Schultz said she promised to continue working for public education and fighting for her community. She said she still sits on the district’s education services board.
“Since I left the school board, I’ve never stopped working with my community,” Schultz said. “I’ve been behind the scenes as a precinct leader. I’ve worked on probably seven or eight campaigns for local candidates out here.
“I’ve been knocking doors. I have been talking to our community for over 2 1/2 years now just from a behind-the-scenes-aspect. So, I think I have really good grasp on what the community is looking for, what they’re tired of.
“I think that’s how I focus on beating Bill Sutton.”
Sutton has been in the Legislature since he was elected to the House in 2012. He’s now in his seventh term in the Kansas House. He was unopposed in 2024.
Davenport is trying to run against Sutton after losing to the incumbent with about 42% of the vote in 2022. He won his school board race by 24 votes.
President Donald Trump carried this district with 61% of the vote in 2024. Republican Derek Schmidt won about 51% of the vote here in the 2022 governor’s race.
And Attorney General Kris Kobach won about 53% of the vote here in 2022.
