(Updated: Story recast to include Denning’s response; edits throughout)
With next year’s Senate races more than a year out, Democratic state Rep. Cindy Holscher late Wednesday night launched a bid to defeat Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning.
Holscher announced her Senate campaign just before 10:30 Wednesday night, hours after Denning and other Republican leaders were unable to cut a deal with Gov. Laura Kelly to expand Medicaid. Republican leadership wants a bill passed next year. Kelly insists on getting Medicaid expanded this year.
“Tens of thousands of Kansans desperately need medical care, and the senator has refused to move forward on expansion,” Holscher said in a statement sent out shortly before 10:30 p.m.
Denning responded Thursday morning with his own statement.
“Leadership can be challenging and leaders at times have to make decisions that aren’t necessarily popular,” Denning said in the statement.
“Over her short time in Topeka, Rep. Holscher has shown that she’s only willing to make decisions that are politically popular and favorable at the time.”
Holscher is building her campaign on expanding Medicaid, adequately funding schools, advocating for domestic violence victims, lowering the sales tax on food and reversing the tax cuts enacted under former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.
“We have made notable progress in the past two yeas on bringing stability back to our budget,” Holscher said in her statement.
“However, there are still many holdovers from the Brownback administration in our Legislature who wish to take us backward and obstruct the will of the people,” she said.
“Voters will know they have a choice of a candidate who will listen to them and represents the interests of the people, not the Koch brothers or special interest groups,” she said.
Denning, meanwhile, touted his support of a veto override in 2017 to reverse the Brownback tax cuts.
He also cited his efforts to put $115 million into the state retirement system this year, “a payment that Rep. Holscher had no awareness in paying at the start of the 2019 session.”
He also emphasized his support for the education bill that adds about $90 million for schools to cover the cost of inflation ordered by the state Supreme Court.
Denning said he will continue to work on a tax bill that the governor will support to allow Kansans to again itemize their state tax returns.
Holscher, who at one point considered running for governor, was elected to represent House District 16 two years ago when she defeated former Republican state Rep. Amanda Grosserode.
She was elected to a second term last fall when she beat Republican Susan Huff with 59% of the vote.
Denning was elected to the state Senate in 2012 as part of the purge of moderate Republicans that election cycle. He beat moderate Republican incumbent Tim Owens in the primary that year.
Denning was re-elected to the Senate in 2016, when he defeated Don McGuire with about 53% of the vote. He was first elected to the Kansas House in 2010.
Democrats are gunning for the state Senate seat, which went for Democratic Gov. Kelly by 20 percentage points in last fall’s election. Congresswoman Sharice Davids won that district by almost 9 percentage points.
The district went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Paul Davis in 2014 by a percentage point or less.
Denning is well prepared for a challenge.
He ended 2018 with $56,250 in the bank after raising $20,850 last year, state records show.
