Former Lt. Gov. Tracey Mann on Monday started the scramble for the 1st District Congressional seat, officially filing his candidacy with the Federal Election Commission.
Mann, who served alongside Gov. Jeff Colyer in 2018, was the first candidate out of the box in what’s expected to be a crowded field to replace Congressman Roger Marshall, who announced he’s running for Senate over the weekend. He filed his candidacy statement with the FEC at about 12:30.
“America faces urgent threats to our freedom,” Mann said in a statement. “While President Trump is doing his best to right the ship, too many Washington politicians want to redefine our founding values and ideals.
“Socialism is on the rise,” he said. “Efforts to impose government-run health care, increase taxes, restrict religious freedom and erode the Second Amendment are part of the same agenda. America needs leaders who will stand up to meet this challenge and fight to protect our founding beliefs,” Mann said.
He is expected to be part of a field that could include state Rep. Troy Waymaster and Garden City eye doctor William Clifford.
Other names mentioned have included state Reps. Steven Johnson and Ken Rahjes, as well as Dodge City Community College Trustee and businessman Gary Harshberger and National Rifle Association lobbyist Travis Couture-Lovelady.
Waymaster said over the weekend he didn’t plan to make an announcement very soon, although he has hired a general consultant and is working to build a “support team” across the sprawling congressional district.
“I think it’s fairly close to 100%,” Waymaster said of a congressional candidacy.
Johnson said in an interview over the weekend that he was still looking over the race. He described himself as “middle of the road” about running. “I don’t know that I can say I am leaning toward it.”
Couture-Lovelady said he hasn’t made a decision.
“It is important to me that western Kansas be represented by a strong conservative in Congress, so I am taking a hard look at it,” he said.
Rahjes said he has not made decision. He said he hopes to decide within the next few weeks but added that he has not set an arbitrary deadline.
“This is not a decision that is made lightly by any means,” he said.
The race for the Big First is expected to be every bit as wide open as the U.S. Senate seat that Marshall and others are vying to win since it’s a seat that doesn’t come open often.
Tim Huelskamp held the seat from 2011 to 2016 before losing to Marshall. Jerry Moran represented the district for 14 years before he was elected to the Senate in 2010 and Roberts for 16 years before that.
Huelskamp recently departed the Heartland Institute in Illinois. Although he plans to return to Kansas, he said is he not running again for Congress this cycle.
Democrat Kali Barnett of Garden City is running for the seat as well. She’s been an elementary school teacher for the last 12 years.
Before joining the Colyer administration, Mann had worked as the managing director and principal of Newmark Grubb Zimmer, a commercial real estate company based in Kansas City.
He received a degree in agricultural economics from Kansas State University in 2000.
Nine years ago, Mann ran for Congress in the Republican primary for the 1st District against a field of five other candidates, including Huelskamp, who went on to get elected to Congress.
Mann finished third in that race behind Huelskamp and Jim Barnett with 21 percent of the vote.
During the campaign, Mann ran into controversy when he reportedly called on President Barack Obama to come forward with proof of citizenship.
The Associated Press reported in 2010 that Mann said during a forum in Elkhart that the president should show his birth certificate and “resolve it one way or another.”
Also, Mann said in a radio interview: “I think the president of the United States needs to come forth with his papers and show everyone that he’s an American citizen and put this issue to bed once and for all.”
The comments grabbed national headlines as well. A spokesman for Mann later said the candidate misspoke and didn’t doubt Obama’s citizenship.
When Colyer named Mann lieutenant governor last year, he had the support of Farm Bureau Chief Executive Officer Terry Holdren.
At that time, Holdren described Mann as a “good friend of Kansas agriculture and a great leader.”
