Kathy Busch wins State Board of Education District 8 GOP primary
Updated 11:15 p.m.: Busch appears to have won the Republican primary with 61% of the vote in Sedgwick County to Hileman’s 39% of the vote. As of 11:15 p.m., all 115 precincts in Sedgwick County were reporting results. The Kansas Secretary of State had not reported final results as of 11:15 p.m.
Reached earlier in the evening Tuesday, Hileman said it’s always a challenge to run against an incumbent, and that she would call Busch when more results were reported.
Updated 9:45 p.m.: Busch maintained her lead over Hileman with 55 of 115 precincts reporting in Sedgwick County showing Busch with nearly 63% of the vote to Hileman’s 37% of the vote. The Kansas Secretary of State has not yet reported results from any precincts in the race.
Original story: Early election results from Sedgwick County show incumbent Kathy Busch is ahead of challenger Trish Hileman with 66% of the vote in the District 8 Republican Primary Election for the State Board of Education seat.
Busch has held the District 8 seat since 2013, after voters first elected her in November 2012. She was re-elected in 2016 after running unopposed in the general election that year.
District 8 includes parts of the Wichita, Derby, Andover, Haysville and Circle school districts.
District 10 also represents parts of those school districts. Republican Jim McNiece ran unopposed for that seat and will run unopposed again in November.
The winner will go on to face Democrat Betty Arnold in the general election on Nov. 3. Arnold ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.
The 10-member state Board of Education has general supervision of K-12 public schools in the state. Board members are elected to a four-year term and receive no pay except for reimbursement for authorized travel expenses.
The Kansas Board of Education races are receiving heightened attention this fall, as schools struggle with plans to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic.
Current members of the State Board of Education voted to reject, in a 5-5 tie, Gov. Laura Kelly’s order to reopen schools after Labor Day. The vote was one of the board’s most controversial, high-profile decisions in years.
Three of the four board members running for re-election supported the order, including incumbent and board chairperson Busch. Hileman has previously said she opposed Busch’s vote in support of Kelly’s order.
Both Busch and Hileman, in responses to questions from The Wichita Eagle, agreed that the most pressing issue for Kansas schools right now is how to navigate school reopenings safely during the coronavirus pandemic.
Results of the race are not final until the canvass, which is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 14, and provisional ballots are either counted or disqualified.
Provisional ballots are those cast by voters whose eligibility is in doubt. The final tally also will include ballots that are mailed on the day of the election.
This story was originally published August 4, 2020 at 8:46 PM.
