Crystal Ball Outlook: Safe R
Democratic candidates: Tom Holland, State Senator
Republican candidates: Sam Brownback, U.S. senator from KS
Recent updates from the Crystal Ball
Update: June 3, 2010
Gov. Mark Parkinson (D), who succeeded Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) when she joined President Obama’s Cabinet as Health and Human Services secretary, has left his party high and dry. He refused to run in 2010, and to add insult to injury, he picked as his new lieutenant governor a Democrat who also pledged not to run. Despite a respectable Democratic candidate in Tom Holland, the election is all but over. Republicans will re-take the governor’s office with current U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback. This is a remarkable example of the governing political party imploding. The GOP can count this one as in the bag. SOLID REPUBLICAN TAKEOVER.
Update: October 8, 2009
Gov. Mark Parkinson (D), who succeeded Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) when she joined President Obama’s Cabinet as Health and Human Services secretary, has left his party high and dry. He refuses to run in 2010, and to add insult to injury, he picked as his new lieutenant governor a Democrat who also pledged not to run. The election is all but over. Republicans will re-take the governor’s office with current U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback. This is a remarkable example of the governing political party imploding. The GOP can count this one as in the bag.
Update: March 19, 2009
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS), to be succeeded shortly by Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson (D-KS): PROBABLE OPEN SEAT. This contest is in flux on the Democratic side, which in this case helps the GOP. Two-term Governor Sebelius has been popular but has to retire after she reaches the two-term limit in 2010. She might have run for the Senate seat of retiring U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback (R)–who is leaving to run for Governor. But Sebelius recently accepted the nomination of President Obama to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. As her successor as Governor, Sebelius had wanted to help her lieutenant governor, Mark Parkinson, who switched from the Republican party to run with her as a Democrat in 2006. But Parkinson earlier decided not to run for Governor, leaving state Treasurer Dennis McKinney (D) as the possible nominee. Now Parkinson will become Governor, and he is under renewed pressure to run for the Democrats in 2010. Surprisingly, Parkinson still says he won’t run, and one suspects it is because he knows how difficult it will be for any Democrat to defeat Brownback. Brownback easily won his 1996, 1998, and 2004 contests for Senate, though he has a primary challenge from Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh (R). The critical unknown is the identity of the new Democratic lieutenant governor, to be appointed by Gov. Parkinson. He or she could end up being the Democratic candidate for Governor in 2010. LEANS REPUBLICAN TURNOVER.