In a race that came down to the wire, Kansas Republicans elected U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran as the GOP nominee for the state’s U.S. Senate seat.
The primary, which culminated on Tuesday, was hotly contested from the start, with both Moran and fellow Congressman Todd Tiahrt attempting to establish their conservative views.
Late Tuesday night, returns showed that Moran held just a 2 percent margin over Tiahrt. With the race close from the start, action picked up late with Tiahrt winning contested Johnson County after 11 p.m.
Tiahrt took 48 percent of the battleground county, compared to Moran’s 44 percent. At that point, Moran held a slight lead over Tiahrt, at 49 percent to 46 percent, with 2,796 of 3,316 precincts reporting statewide. Moran also held a slight numerical lead, with 143,420 votes compared to 134,775 votes for Tiahrt. The remaining 6 percent was split between Tom Little and Robert Londerholm.
Currently, the seat is held by Sam Brownback, who won the GOP nomination for Kansas Governor Tuesday night.
In the beginning of the race, Moran held a sizable fundraising advantage, but Tiahrt closed the electorate gap after garnering support from conservative activists, including the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life.
The Democrat side of the Senate race was decided earlier as Baker University assistant dean Lisa Johnston won the Kansas Democrat nomination for the seat. She defeated state Sen. David Haley of Kansas City; Charles Schollenberger, a former newspaper reporter and editor from Prairie Village; Lawrence attorney and accountant Patrick Wiesner; and retired Shawnee railroad engineer Robert Conroy.
Johnston, who lives in Overland Park, has worked 17 years in higher education and oversees support services for students at Baker, in Baldwin City.
Kansas holds the record for the longest drought for Democrats in the Senate. The state has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932.
