Endorsement roundup: All The Wichita Eagle’s picks for Tuesday’s election | Opinion

It’s crunch time, folks.

Tuesday is Election Day. It’s time to get out and vote, and the editorial board of The Wichita Eagle has endorsed candidates in key races around our region who will influence who’ll be running various aspects of our government for the next two years and probably beyond.

You’re probably familiar with the candidates in some of these races, others, not so much.

So here are our picks for Election 2024:

Kansas Board of Education

These races, which have been running a little under the radar compared to some others, might actually be the most important on the ballot. There’s an ideological split on the 10-member board between members who want to run efficient and effective schools, and those who want to use classrooms to fight culture wars.

We couldn’t more strongly endorse Jeffrey Jarman for board District 10 and incumbent Betty Arnold in District 8.

Jarman is a Wichita State University professor, director of WSU’s respected Elliott School of Communications and a former board member in the Maize Unified School District, one of the state’s best.

Arnold has served the state board well for the past four years, after 10 years of quality service on the Wichita school board.

Both their opponents are abysmally unqualified.

Sedgwick County Commission

These are also important races, but with quality candidates on both sides.

After much deliberation, our board settled on endorsing incumbent Sarah Lopez in District 2 over former Wichita council member Jeff Blubaugh, and Celeste Racette in Commission District 3, over commercial real estate agent Stephanie Wise.

Lopez has been an effective advocate for her south Wichita-based district and has led from the center as the only Democrat on the five-member board.

Racette, a retired federal bank examiner and fraud investigator, has been a valuable watchdog over Wichita City Hall and led the (so far) successful Save Century II campaign.

US House

We endorsed Democrats Esau Freeman in the Wichita-based 4th Congressional District and Paul Buskirk in District 1, which stretches from the Colorado border to Lawrence.

For us it came down to one issue: the Jan. 6 attack on our nation’s Capitol: The incumbents, Ron Estes and Tracey Mann, both made the politically craven choice to continue spurious challenges to the results of the 2020 election, even after being routed from their own legislative chamber by a motley mob of insurgents in the ugliest incident of mass political violence of this century.

Realistically, these districts are so carefully gerrymandered to favor Republicans that the incumbents will likely be in office as long as they care to keep putting their name on the ballot.

But we’re standing on principle here, and hope others join us. Perhaps a better-than-expected showing by the overmatched Democrats will send a message that American democracy is worth protecting from those who’d try to take it by force.

Freeman, who represents unionized workers at Wichita City Hall and the school district, and Buskirk, a longtime staffer in the University of Kansas athletics department, are both up to the job and committed to defending our votes.

Kansas Legislature

In key legislative races around the region, we are endorsing:

▪ Republican Steve Huebert in the Valley Center/Maize-based House District 90.

Huebert represented the district for 22 years before stepping down two years ago. His replacement, Rep. Carl Maughan, is not seeking reelection after two drunk driving convictions and an at-least year-long suspension from practicing law ordered by the Kansas Supreme Court.

We feel Huebert’s legislative experience gives him the edge over Democrat Tracy Edingfield, a retired attorney and author.

▪ J.C. Moore in Kansas Senate District 26. Moore is a moderate Republican and former state representative who lost the GOP primary to the more conservative appointed incumbent Chase Blasi. Moore is in the general election because he was nominated by newly formed United Kansas Party.

▪ Democratic incumbent Jason Probst in Hutchinson-based House District 102.

Probst has been an excellent representative for his district. Meanwhile, a video that surfaced late in the campaign shows his opponent, Kyler Sweely, leaping onto a seemingly unconscious woman and feigning smothering her with a pillow.

▪ Democrat Heidi Hoskinson in Newton-based House District 72. The incumbent, Republican state Rep. Avery Anderson, was part of the drunken apartment gathering where the aforementioned Sweely video was made, calling into question his maturity and judgment along with Sweely’s.

Hoskinson is a vice president at the Mennonite Church-affiliated Bethel College in North Newton, and we believe we can count on her not to get involved in any incidents embarrassing the Legislature and the office of state representative.

This story was originally published November 2, 2024 at 2:14 PM.