County Commissioner Richard Ranzau will face newcomer Lacey Cruse in November

Lacey Cruse, a political newcomer whose campaign poster proclaimed “NO MORE OLD WHITE GUYS,” will face off against incumbent Richard Ranzau in the race for Sedgwick County commissioner in District 4.

Ranzau, 53, squeaked out a win in his Republican primary against political newcomer Hugh Nicks. The difference was 87 votes.

Cruse, 36, toppled Michael Kinard, a community activist and former Wichita school board member, garnering 57 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary.

“I feel great,” Cruse said after the final vote tally. “I feel like I have worked my butt off, and there’s still more to do.

“This is just the beginning. And . . . now it’s full steam ahead.”

Ranzau spent most of the evening trailing his opponent in the Republican primary, edging forward only when final results were posted.

“Right now we’re looking good,” Ranzau said. Election results will be finalized after provisional ballots are counted.

Ranzau represents District 4, which stretches from central Wichita to the north and west.

“It was a nerve-wracking night, of course. . . . We knew some of the areas hadn’t come in yet, so we were just waiting to know if we could make up the difference,” he said. “In the end, we did, so we’re pretty happy.”

Nicks, a retired marketing executive, had claimed throughout his campaign that Ranzau was too divisive and didn’t deserve to retain his seat on the county commission.

“I just thought people were ready for a change — something more civil, something more professional,” Nicks said during his watch party at Maize United Methodist Church. “But I guess not.”

Cruse, a hospice consultant and folk singer, spent Tuesday evening entertaining supporters at her home in north Wichita.

The Democratic race was a match-up of new blood versus a well-known name. Cruse entered the political scene just last year after she became energized by the January 2017 Women’s March to protest the election of President Donald Trump.

Kinard, a photographer known in northeast Wichita as “the Pictureman,” campaigned on a platform of experience. He served on the Wichita school board from 2001 to 2005.

Cruse has teamed up with her friend Renee Duxler, a Douglas Design District businesswoman who is running for the vacant commission seat in the 1st district.

Their common pitch is that the commission has long been dominated by men — especially older white men — and needs an infusion of youth and female influence.

Cruse got a major boost at a rally last month featuring former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a rising star of the Democrats’ progressive wing. The rally drew a crowd of about 4,000. It was mostly to support the congressional candidacy of Democrat James Thompson, but Cruse got a turn on the stage as one of the warm-up acts.

On the Republican side, the campaign boiled down to two major issues: obstruction and corruption.

Nicks — with a lot of help from his allies at the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce — flooded mailboxes in the district with fliers accusing Ranzau of obstructing efforts to use government subsidies to spur businesses and jobs.

Ranzau leaned heavily on his record as a commissioner, highlighting his outspoken opposition to taxes and what he says are sleazy and largely hidden dealings between the county and well-connected business people.

The money difference was huge in the race. Nicks outraised Ranzau by a factor of three to one.

A recent finance report showed that Nicks, a former vice president of the chamber, raised more than $54,000 for his campaign, most of it from corporate executives, especially development and real estate interests.

Ranzau raised $18,000 to defend his seat, mixed among real estate interests, small-business owners and conservative activists.

John Todd, a longtime Republican activist, said Ranzau’s old-school, shoe-leather campaigning succeeded in the end.

“The old joke is, ‘Money is the mother’s milk of politics,’” Todd said. “In this case, by knocking on doors, it didn’t work. Thank God for that.”

All five commissioners are Republicans, but there’s a divide between low-tax, small-government conservatives and a more pro-business wing that supports more government involvement in the private sector.

Ranzau was a leader of the small-government wing that held the majority until the 2016 election.

Two other seats on the Sedgwick County Commission are up for election in November.

For the District 1 seat, Republican Pete Meitzner, a Wichita City Council member, will face Democrat newcomer Renee Duxler in November.

In District 5, former Sedgwick County commissioner Jim Skelton filed to run as an independent candidate for his former seat. He’ll be on the ballot for the November general election against incumbent Jim Howell.

Contributing: Jerry Siebenmark, Jenna Farhat, Madison Obermeyer, and Jason Tidd of The Eagle.

This story was originally published August 7, 2018 at 11:36 PM.