Johnson County businessman and GOP gubernatorial candidate Philip Sarnecki on Wednesday morning launched a new digital ad, urging reluctant Republicans to draw election boundaries for members of Congress.
“The Democrats are mounting an all-out effort to take back control of Congress and they’ve drawn districts in every blue state to help them take over,” Sarnecki says in the new ad.
“It’s time for red states like Kansas to fight back. We can draw new district lines that will give Republicans a chance to win every congressional seat here in Kansas.
“But some Republicans in Topeka are dragging their feet. I don’t want to attack them. I want to reason with them,” the ad says.
A Sarnecki spokesperson would only say that “significant” resources were spent on the ad.
Sarnecki doesn’t mention who he’s referring to in the ad, but it’s generally believed that the Kansas House is cooler on the idea of drawing new election boundaries before the 2026 midterm elections than the Senate.
During a recent retreat, Republican House members were given a chance to sign a petition calling for a special session although it’s unclear how many agreed to sign.
Senators are expected to get a chance to sign a petition later this week.
Attorney General Kris Kobach has called for a special session to address a court ruling that allows transgender Kansans to changes their gender markers on driver’s licenses.
The governor has accused Kobach of using the court ruling to leverage support for a special session on redistricting.
Whether Kobach’s call for a special session to address the court case mobilizes support to deal with redistricting remains unclear.
Republican state Rep. Brett Fairchild of St. John initially declined to sign the petition but changed his mind after hearing from the attorney general’s office seeking to address the court case.
“Th attorney general’s office is simply asking to pass legislation to make the language of this law more clear, to ensure that activist judges can’t misconstrue the meaning of the law,” Fairchild posted on Facebook.
“This seems like a reasonable request to me, and I decided to sign the special session petition for that reason. Since I voted for the original bill in 2023, it’s likely that I’ll vote for this new legislation to clarify the wording of the original bill.”
However, drawing a new congressional map is different, he said.
“I’m opposed to passing a new congressional redistricting map. I’ll provide an explanation for my position at a later time,” he wrote.
This is the second redistricting-related ad that’s been pushed out in recent weeks.
The conservative-leaning Club for Growth recently ran television ads in Kansas that highlighted California as an example of “liberals trying to rig elections.”
Sarnecki’s ad comes as he tries to set himself apart from a crowded Republican field for governor that includes former Gov. Jeff Colyer, Senate President Ty Masterson, Secreretary of State Scott Schwab, Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt and former Wichita school board member Joy Eakins.
So far, only Colyer has been on television with an ad run by a group called Kansas 1st Inc., formed Feb. 5 as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that is not required to disclose its donors.
Kansas 1st spent about $185,000 running the ad on television, according to the national ad tracking firm AdImpact.
The group spent $128,484 on cable television and another $56,594 on satellite television, according to data provided by AdImpact.
The ad featured President Donald Trump referring to Colyer as a man with “incredible integrity and class” and called him “one hell of a governor.”
