A political party that was formed two years ago to promote fusion voting in Kansas is now evolving into a broader movement that’s intended to mobilize Kansas moderates as it tries to move the state to the political center.
United Kansas announced Tuesday that it was merging with the Free State Party, which is not recognized as a political party in Kansas but is more of a coalition of about 150 people.
Scott Morgan, chief counsel to former Republican Gov. Mike Hayden who ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state against Kris Kobach in 2014, will serve as executive director of the United Kansas Party.
Morgan co-chaired the effort to build the Free State Party, which was described as a new moderate political party “grounded in principled moderation, fiscal responsibility, and civic renewal.”
He previously chaired the Party of the Center initiative from 2017 to 2018, an effort to explore a moderate political path for Kansas.
The Party of the Center joined with the Serve America Movement to collect enough signatures to register candidates for the 2018 fall elections, but came up short.
Morgan replaces Aaron Estabrook, one of the founding members of the United Kansas Party.
Estabrook is stepping aside as executive director, but he will remain on the group’s board.
“We’re trying to build a broad coalition from the center left and the center right,” Morgan said in an interview.
Morgan said the group has developed “principles of moderation.”
The goal is to show how those principles can be applied to issues such as abortion, immigration, child care, affordable housing, guns, taxes, elections and equality.
“It really was a merger of what we were talking about and moving it into what they were talking about but also with their certified party so we’re on the ballot in 2026,” Morgan said.
The newly merged organization will focus on fielding candidates in the 2026 election, with a particular emphasis on Kansas House districts that often go uncontested.
The group has identified 50 House races that were uncontested in 2024.
“That’s not democracy,” the group said on its website.
“That’s a system protecting itself. We’re not spoilers when the two parties can’t even be bothered to run against each other. What we see isn’t a spoiler movement. It’s an opening.”
Morgan said the group wants to break the Republican supermajority by giving voters an alternative in districts where the Democratic brand may be considered “poison.”
Estabrook said in a statement that United Kansas has seen “a clear hunger for a more practical and less divisive approach to politics.”
“Joining forces with Free State allows us to broaden that effort and connect with more Kansans.”
United Kansas plans to support at least one statewide candidate in 2026 as required by law to maintain party certification, as well as candidates for selected local offices, including county commission seats.
A statewide candidate for United Kansas needs to get at least 1% of the vote in the general election to retain its recognized status as a political party.
Morgan wasn’t ready to identify that candidate in an interview Tuesday.
He said United Kansas is adopting the principles of moderation established by the Free State Party, which include fiscal responsibility, diversity of opinion, beliefs and lifestyle as well as support for “pragmatic, respectful and results-oriented leadership.”
“You can’t just say I’m a centrist, I’m a moderate,” he said, adding that could be perceived as not standing for any particular issue.
The principles of moderation, he said, “provide a philosophical foundation” for the group as well as “consistency and guardrails against extremism.”
“They really are pretty basic principles,” he said.
The group said it supports protecting existing constitutional protections of abortion and believes the “issue should continue to be addressed with moderation, honesty, and respect for differing views.”
The group believes the state should expand affordable housing, with a focus on starter homes for first-time buyers.
It believes that public education “should remain a strong and central priority for state support.”
It also supports ranked-choice voting – now illegal in Kansas – and the restoration of fusion voting, which is now the focus of a lawsuit before the Kansas Court of Appeals.
The merger will not affect efforts to get fusion voting legalized in Kansas, said Morgan, who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Fusion voting allows multiple parties to nominate the same candidate for the same office in a general election with all the votes added together for a final tally.
While the two major parties nominate different candidates, third parties may cross over and endorse one of the major party candidates and “fuse” with them.
Organizers of the effort said fusion voting could help moderate Kansas politics and drive the state more to the political center.
Fusion voting is a creature of the 19th century when it was a part of U.S. politics, particularly in the West and Midwest, according to a 2020 Idaho Law Review article exploring the issue.
The issue of fusion voting dates back more than 100 years in Kansas when the Populist Party and the Democratic Party would nominate the same individual to the same office.
After the Republicans swept the November 1900 election, in the 1901 session, they immediately enacted legislation to prohibit “fusion tickets.”
The United Kansas lawsuit says the fusion voting ban violates the state constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of association and equal protection.
