Local elections are nonpartisan by law. So why is the Republican Party campaigning?

Wichita’s local elections are supposed to be nonpartisan, but that hasn’t stopped the local Republican Party from reminding voters who its favored candidates are.

Splashed across the top of a mailer sent out earlier this week by the Sedgwick County Republican party is a message: “Let’s re-elect Republican Mayor Jeff Longwell.”

Lest there be any doubt, the mailer says “Paid for by Sedgwick County Republican Party.”

Longwell is in what is expected to be a close race against Rep. Brandon Whipple, a Democrat.

Longwell isn’t the only Republican in the race. Fellow Republican Lyndy Wells, who was narrowly defeated in the primary by Whipple, is running a late-addition write-in campaign.

On the other side of the Republican Party’s mailer is an endorsement for School Board President Sheril Logan, who is also up for election. Voters are encouraged to “Vote Republican on Nov. 5.”

Logan’s in a race against Joseph Shepard, a Democrat, who received 527 more votes than her in the Aug. 7 primary.

It is not illegal for parties to campaign for candidates in nonpartisan elections, but party affiliation is not listed on the ballot.

The idea behind keeping local races nonpartisan is an attempt to insulate local government — which provides essential services such as infrastructure, police and water service — from political squabbles. Party lines are often drawn at the national level, and if those fights trickle down into local politics, the argument goes, local government becomes less efficient.

Twenty-two out of 30 of the most populous cities in the nation have nonpartisan elections, according to the National League of Cities.

Ben Sauceda, executive director of the Sedgwick County Republicans, said “no office is too small” for the local Republican party to want to win.

“Whether it is School Board or City Council or U.S. Representative, we want to make sure that people who are like-minded are being elected to those positions,” Sauceda said.

Sauceda said the mailers were “not a high cost” and that they were targeted at Republicans that tend to vote.

But some of the city’s most prominent Republicans are not pleased at the party intervening in what is supposed to be a nonpartisan election.

“They need to stay out of it,” said John Todd, a longtime Republican activist and vice president of the Wichita Pachyderm Club. “The elections are nonpartisan. It’s the way state law is set up. If they have a problem with that they need to work in Topeka to get the law changed.”

Todd said he would actually favor changing the law, because then the primary would narrow all the races to two candidates.

Under current law, if there are three candidates who file for a city or school board office, all three advance to the general election and whoever gets the most votes wins. Todd said that reduces the chance of any candidate earning a majority mandate to govern.

Whipple, a four-term state representative, said the Sedgwick County Republican Party’s choice to insert party politics into the nonpartisan mayor’s race does not surprise him.

“It just shows that they’re worried that members of their base will vote on values instead of voting on party this time around,” Whipple said.

Whipple said he thinks the mailer meant to serve as a reminder to Republicans that Longwell is “on the team.”

“Even though Republicans value transparency and Republicans despise pay-to-play politics, just like Democrats do, I think what they’re trying to say is ‘He’s still one of us, even though he’s made mistakes.’”

Whipple said he doesn’t see the race along party lines.

“My view for the future of Wichita is to grow and make necessary changes. My opponent’s message is really that we’re going to keep things the same,” he said.

Longwell did not return The Eagle’s phone calls.

Party divisions

Russell Fox, a professor of political science at Friends University, said there’s always an element of partisanship in nonpartisan races that match a Republican against a Democrat. But it’s more pronounced this year because of divisions in both parties.

“I come back to the fact that both the Republican and Democratic parties have factions that dislike their candidates who are running for mayor,” Fox said. “There are Republicans who do not like Jeff Longwell and there are Democrats who don’t like Brandon Whipple.

“I tend to think that one of the main reasons why you’re seeing this emphasis on partisanship is exactly because neither of the candidates can fully count on their own parties and so they have to push that angle.”

Sauceda said its important that voters know they have a choice between a Republican and a Democrat, because political affiliations give voters a set of ideological expectations.

“Are there individuals who are not happy with Mayor Longwell that are Republicans?,” Sauceda said. “That’s probably not an inaccurate statement.

“But I would guarantee if you took the pulse of Democrats, there are those that aren’t happy with Brandon Whipple. So I don’t know if you can ever get 100% approval, . . . but a majority has supported Mayor Longwell.”

Fox said Republican opposition to Longwell falls into two categories, personal and ideological.

“There’s an element that they see him a being a crony, they see him as not being a real free-marketer, instead, he’s picking winners, he’s going to give contracts to his friends, things like that,” Fox said.

The Democratic Party hasn’t weighed in formally like the Republican Party has.

Fox said one reason is probably an ongoing schism between traditional Democrats who believe the path to victory for their side is to run centrist candidates who appeal to moderates of both parties, like former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius; versus generally younger Democrats inspired by Bernie Sanders-style progressivism who want a more dynamic and ideological approach.

“On the Democratic side, it’s generational mostly,” Fox said. “I think what you have are a lot of Democrats who have had a long time to figure out how Democrats can win in Kansas, if they ever do. Now you have younger Democrats who are not following that playbook and it bugs them.”

During the primary, several locally prominent Democrats endorsed the candidacy of Wells, a retired Republican banker who finished third and off the ballot for the Nov. 5 general election.

Since the primary, two former mayors – Democrat Carl Brewer and Republican Bob Knight – jumped into the campaign urging Wells to run as a write-in candidate, which he’s agreed to do.

Sauceda said the Republicans decided to run a mailer in favor of Longwell, even though Wells is in the race, because the decision had already been made before Wells announced his write-in campaign.

“The voters had their chance to pick Mr. Wells in the primary, and they did not. So the decision was not altered to send this mailer out because he announced a write-in campaign,” Sauceda said.

This story was originally published October 25, 2019 at 5:01 AM.