By Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Kansas Sen. Cindy Holscher says she will seek the Democratic nomination for governor to try to protect public schools and shield the state from a potential double dose of “slash and burn policies” ignited by Republicans at federal and state levels.
Holscher, from Overland Park, planned to announce her candidacy Thursday, becoming the first well-known Democrat to enter the race. A slate of Republicans have already announced their intentions to replace Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who is serving her second term.
Holscher said she is focusing on “kitchen table” issues after seeing fellow Democrats lose legislative seats in last year’s election.
“I understand the struggles people are facing — that housing is expensive, that food is expensive,” Holscher said. “Those tend to be the things that I focus on in terms of, you know, what’s going to help me, and what’s going to help my family, and what’s going to help other members of my community succeed. I mean, those are very real big issues in terms of being able to pay your bills, being able to afford rent, and afford the things that you need to get by. So that’s where I tend to focus most of my energy.”
Holscher served two terms in the Kansas House after winning her first race in 2016, then moved to the Senate in 2020, where she won a seat in a competitive district that was formerly held by the Republican majority leader. While other Democrats struggled, she improved her winning margin from 9 percentage points in 2020 to 23 percentage points in 2024.
The way Holscher tells it, she came from “humble beginnings” in — “this is the part people don’t like” — rural Missouri.
“I was born there — I had no input on it,” she joked, in a nod to the border state rivalry.
She said her grandparents were tenant farmers and that her parents took care of the farm while working other jobs. Her father, a veteran, was a construction worker, and her mother was a school janitor.
Holscher earned a degree in journalism with a political science emphasis from the University of Missouri, “but you don’t have to mention that,” she said.
She said she and her husband moved to the Kansas City, Kansas, metro area more than 25 years ago. They wanted to start a family and were impressed with the schools, she said. She worked in several positions at Sprint Corp., including in operations, where she designed multibillion-dollar budgets.
But her kids were in school when former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration cratered state finances to pay for his ill-fated “tax experiment” and engineered steep cuts to public education. Even in Johnson County, which is known for its economic prosperity, schools didn’t have enough supplies, Holscher said, and some of the classrooms had shower curtains instead of doors.
When her daughter was about 10, she said, they saw one of her teachers working at Target. The daughter asked why her teacher would be working there on the weekend when she already worked full-time at the school.
“I told her, ‘Well, we’re in the middle of a severe budget crisis. Schools aren’t getting funded the way they should, and she probably can’t pay her bills,’ ” Holscher said.
Her daughter looked at Holscher and said: “You go fix that.”
“As I thought about it, I’m like, OK, good, reasonable people are going to have to step forward to stop this spiraling downward,” Holscher said. “And that’s how I ended up running for office. I’ve kind of stayed in the fight because every year, that extremist base has gotten bigger, and they’re really trying to reach their goals of destroying public education and implementing some of those very backward tax and economic policies.”
She said she is running for governor in part because she has now invested 10 years fighting for public schools and economic stability.
Holscher supports reproductive health rights, Medicaid expansion and the legalization of medicinal marijuana. She said state tax policy “isn’t real fair to the regular Kansan” and needs to be corrected.
She has been a vocal critic of the Committee on Government Efficiency — or COGE, inspired by Elon Musk’s federal initiative known as DOGE — where she is the ranking minority member.
During recent town halls across the state, she said, people have expressed fear and anxiety about the impact of federal cuts and “the fact that we have a supermajority of same-style extremists in the Legislature.”
Lt. Gov. David Toland, who also serves as commerce secretary, is a potential challenger for the Democratic nomination for governor. But it isn’t clear whether Toland, or other Democrats, will run.
The Republican field is led by Secretary of State Scott Schwab. Other potential candidates include former Gov. Jeff Colyer, Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, state Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt, former Johnson County Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara, businesswoman Stacy Rogers and Wichita school board member Joy Eakins.
Only conservative podcaster Doug Billings has paid the filing fee to be a candidate.
Holscher said party insiders suggested she could wait to run until 2030 because if a Republican were to win this time around and implement damaging policies, it would be easier for Democrats to win races later.
“The fact of the matter is if all of those damaging policies move forward, and many of them will, that just means that a number of people won’t be able to have a future here in Kansas,” Holscher said.
