{"id":103082,"date":"2026-07-02T09:34:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T15:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kcnonline.com\/wp\/?p=103082"},"modified":"2026-07-02T09:34:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T15:34:25","slug":"democrat-drops-out-of-4th-district-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kcnonline.com\/wp\/2026\/07\/02\/democrat-drops-out-of-4th-district-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrat Drops Out of 4th District Race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>By Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">TOPEKA \u2014 Cole Epley announced Wednesday he was suspending his congressional campaign and endorsed Chris Carmichael for the Democratic nomination in the Wichita-area 4th District.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Epley, 28, had hoped to push the party to the left by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/kansasreflector.com\/2026\/06\/22\/gen-z-congressional-candidate-believes-proud-progressive-views-will-appeal-to-kansas-voters\/\">running as a \u201cproud progressive\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;in a district where more moderate Democrats have repeatedly lost by wide margins to incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Estes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Epley, a former social worker, will remain on the Aug. 4 primary ballot alongside Carmichael, an aerospace executive; Katy Tyndell, an attorney who works in the oil and gas industry; and Ryan Gilbert, a family law business manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Carmichael said he was honored to have Epley\u2019s support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI respect the campaign he ran and the people he inspired to get involved,\u201d Carmichael said. \u201cI\u2019m grateful for his support, and I welcome everyone who wants to help us defeat Ron Estes and bring honest, accountable leadership to Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sarah Lopez, campaign manager for Tyndell, touted the endorsements of Tyndell by former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and former Lt. Gov. Lynn Rogers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI think it\u2019s great that Chris has found someone to support him, but Katy is focused on earning the trust and support of community leaders and voters who have fought the hard fights and agree with her vision for a better Kansas,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector TOPEKA \u2014 Cole Epley announced Wednesday he was suspending his congressional campaign and endorsed Chris Carmichael for the Democratic nomination in the Wichita-area 4th District. Epley, 28, had hoped to push the party to the left by&nbsp;running as a \u201cproud progressive\u201d&nbsp;in a district where more moderate Democrats have repeatedly lost [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[2049,2939],"class_list":["post-103082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state","tag-democratic-party","tag-elections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcnonline.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcnonline.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcnonline.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcnonline.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcnonline.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcnonline.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcnonline.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcnonline.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcnonline.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}