(Updated to include a new broadcast filing that increased the total spending)
A left-leaning dark money group is spending more than $400,000 in television advertising, targeting at least three Republican statehouse candidates in Wichita and Topeka.
The Kansas Values Institute, a nonprofit social welfare group that’s not required to disclose its donors, is running ads that raise the specter of former Gov. Sam Brownback and criticize the GOP candidates on health care issues.
The sum spent on television – totaled at about $443,760 – does not count any money that’s going toward mailers and digital advertising, making the total spending undoubtedly higher.
It also doesn’t include other districts where Kansas Values might be involved in other forms of media such as mailers.
The ad buys in Wichita and Topeka, some observers said, make sense because they are less expensive and help candidates who might not get the same lift from Democratic support they might get in Johnson County.
Federal records show that the Kansas Values Institute is spending about $390,000 in the Wichita market against Rep. Renee Erickson and state Sen. Mike Petersen.
Erickson is seeking the District 30 seat now held by Senate President Susan Wagle. She faces Melissa Gregory, a top aide to Kathleen Sebelius when she was governor.
Petersen, who is seeking a fifth term in the Senate, is up against former House Minority Leader Jim Ward.
Petersen and Ward are both up on television as well. Ward has purchased more than $80,000 in television ads compared to about $25,000 for Petersen.
Kansas Values is spending about $54,000 in the Topeka market against Republican Kristen O’Shea, who is running for Senate District 18.
She is battling Tobias Schlingensiepen to fill the seat once held by Gov. Laura Kelly but most recently by Vic Miller, who is now running for the House.
It’s a seat that’s seen as ripe for the GOP since Kelly won the district with about 52% of the vote against former Republican Shawnee County Sheriff Dick Barta in 2012 and Republican Dave Jackson in 2016.
Efforts to reach the Kansas Values Institute for comment were unsuccessful.
The group’s executive director is Evan Gates, who replaced Ryan Wright when he went to work for Gov. Kelly’s administration.
In the past, the Kansas Values Institute has received money from teachers unions such as the Kansas NEA and the American Federation of Teachers.
It also has received contributions from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Laborers Political League Education Fund.
It spent millions in 2014 trying to defeat Brownback and again in 2018 against Kris Kobach in the Kansas governor’s race.
“This innocuously-named Kansas Values Institute has nothing to do with Kansas values,” Republican Party spokesman CJ Grover said in a statement.
“It is a dark money group affiliated with Laura Kelly that exists to elect liberal candidates and push liberal policies,” Grover said.
“If Laura Kelly and Democrats in the Legislature weren’t rank hypocrites, they would call on this group to either stop spending this money or be honest with voters about which donors in California and New York it is coming from,” Grover said.
The money flowing to the statehouse races from KVI will help offset the many thousands of dollars that conservative groups such as the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Prosperity are expected to spend in many of the same races.
The Kansas Values Institute is aiming for two Republican districts that went for Kelly in 2018.
Petersen, for instance, won his race with about 51% of the vote in 2016. Kelly beat Kobach there in 2018 by about 9 percentage points.
Meanwhile in Senate District 30, Kelly won that district by 14 percentage points, something that Wagle recently recognized when she pressed the importance of keeping the supermajority in the Legislature so the GOP could control redistricting.
In a speech to the Pachyderm Club in Wichita, Wagle acknowledged that her district was moving to the left, making it necessary to redraw the district so it included more red neighborhoods.
Her comments sparked a furor from Democrats, who used her comments to demonstrate that Republicans want to rig the political process in their favor.
The Kansas Values Institute raised about $6.5 million in revenue in 2018, according to the latest tax filing available. It ended that election season with about $500,000 left.
It raised about $1.2 million in 2016 – the last time the entire Legislature was on the ballot – and about $4.2 million when former Gov. Sam Brownback turned back a reelection challenge from Democrat Paul Davis.
“The governor has an unprecedented amount of dark money pouring into the state to defeat Senate Republicans,” said Chase Blasi, chief of staff for Wagle.
“Her goal is to break our supermajority, which has been the backstop to her liberal policies,” Blasi said.
“Two judicial nominees and every veto brought to the Senate floor has been defeated, keeping a strong check on her executive powers.”
