Cindy Holscher is first major Kansas Democrat to declare for 2026 governor race

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2 days ago

The first major Democratic candidate has declared for the 2026 Kansas governor's race: state Sen. Cindy Holscher.
Holscher, D-Overland Park, announced her candidacy June 12.
"Like the majority of Kansans, I just want to take a common sense approach to government and making sure that we are serving the people and working in their best interest, not extremist agendas and not dark money groups," Holscher said in an interview with The Capital-Journal. "My desire is to listen to the people and work for their best interests."
Holscher has served in the Senate since 2021 and before that spent four years in the House.
While a handful of big-name and longshot Republicans have declared for the GOP field — most notably Secretary of State Scott Schwab and former Gov. Jeff Colyer — no major Democratic candidates had declared.
The race to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is still taking shape and more announcements are expected. The filing deadline isn't until June 2026.
Holscher said some party insiders had encouraged her to wait, telling her "if a Republican comes in and does all the damage that we think they'll do, then it'll be easier for a Democrat or the party to win in 2030." But Holscher said she believes the next election is critical.
"We have to make sure we have some balance in the Statehouse in terms of having a Democratic governor again to provide a check on some of the horrible policies that likely will come forward from the extremists who have control," she said.
She made the decision to run for governor after traveling across the state in recent months.
"Not so much to explore running for governor," she said, "but really at the end of session, I started receiving phone calls from areas saying that sometimes the local legislators wouldn't show up for town halls, or federal officials, and so I started getting invitations to come do a legislative overview."
During those events, she has heard from Kansans.
"What I'm hearing from voters is that they're expressing fear, they're expressing anxiety over the cuts that have been made on the federal level, and they're worried about what can happen on the state level," she said. "We have an extremist Legislature, and the concern is that that agenda will be brought to the state level, and without a Democratic governor there, those things won't be stopped."
So what issues is Holscher running on?
"Voters are very focused on making sure they have a leader who will protect Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans and farmers," she said. "They want to make sure that their schools are funded, that has been part of the key to the success of Kansas. ... In terms of cost of living, the concerns I'm hearing are access to affordable child care, access to affordable housing, just some of those basics kitchen table issues."
Holscher grew up on a farm and comes from a family of veterans.
"I come from very humble roots. ... I want to make sure that everybody out there has the same opportunity to be successful in life and to have a shot at the American dream," she said.
She and her husband of 33 years have three children, and the youngest just graduated from high school.
"All of them are products of excellent public schools here in Kansas," she said.
The family had moved to the Kansas City area, where Holscher worked at Sprint as "the head of the department that developed budgets" for operations west of the Mississippi River.
"Revenue-wise, we're talking about budgets larger than what we do at the state Capitol," she said.
Holscher entered politics at the urging of her daughter.
The family had moved to Kansas in part because "the school were great," Holscher said. But then, "about the time we had kids going into school, that's when the Brownback experiment was happening. Our schools were losing teachers because of the budget crisis and underfunding, we didn't have paras, we didn't have janitors, we didn't have supplies."
Then one weekend during a trip to Target, her oldest daughter saw one of her teachers working there.
"She asked me why her teacher was working at Target on a weekend after having worked a full-time job all week and she had a family, and I remember telling her we were in a budget crisis and our schools were underfunded and her teacher probably wasn't making enough money to pay the bills," Holscher said. "My daughter looked at me and said, 'You go fix that.'"
Holscher said she has taken a collaborative approach to politics.
"My first term (I) was a co-founder of the women's bipartisan caucus, and we worked to formulate the plan that ended the Brownback tax experiment," she said. "So obviously, when you're talking about a Legislature that has a majority of the other party, collaboration, reaching across the aisle, is going to be very important."
Democrats have performed better in northeast Kansas communities like the Kansas City metro, Lawrence and Topeka. Appealing to voters in other parts of the state starts with "actually going to those places," she said.
"I grew up in a rural area, so I enjoy going to those areas," she said. "And at the heart of it, a lot of our issues are the same. Sometimes we don't always see that, but a lot of our issues are the same. But I think it also helps too in respect that my district that I serve is Republican leaning. That obviously kind of makes a difference in having an understanding of who all you are serving.
"I'm not here just to serve a certain segment. I'm here to serve all Kansans."
Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for The Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at [e-mail]. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Cindy Holscher is first major Kansas Democrat in 2026 governor's race