Kansas Republicans pick election conspiracy promoter Mike Brown as their new leader

Republicans in Kansas narrowly picked an activist who has promoted unfounded election conspiracies and promised a shakeup to guide the state Republican Occasion for the following two years, following weeks of infighting that mirrors the acrimony within the social gathering throughout the U.S.

Inside half-hour of the change within the Kansas Republican Occasion’s management, its state committee reviewed a decision demanding that the U.S. Home impeach President Joe Biden for “tyranny” over feedback he and his aides made in the summertime of 2021 decrying misinformation about coronavirus vaccines spreading throughout the GOP. The committee tabled the decision till its subsequent assembly.

The Kansas state committee elected Mike Brown, who has lengthy been energetic within the GOP within the Kansas Metropolis space, as its new chair by means of the 2024 elections. The vote got here three months after Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly narrowly received reelection and the one Democrat within the state’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, received one other time period handily in her Kansas Metropolis-area district.

The Kansas social gathering’s retiring chair, Mike Kuckelman, and its two different Republican Nationwide Committee members supported RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel when she received reelection final month. However Brown had referred to as on McDaniel to resign in December, and he mentioned Saturday that the nationwide GOP is seeing an inner “rebellion” from members nonetheless upset over COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

“The RNC must be paying very shut consideration to that,” Brown mentioned. “It’s the way forward for our social gathering.”

Final 12 months, Brown ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination for Kansas secretary of state. Each he and his opponent, Helen Van Etten, a longtime Topeka activist and former RNC member, promised to revive the Kansas social gathering. However Brown requested fellow Republicans whether or not they have been proud of the outcomes of the previous two governor’s races, received by Kelly, and Davids’ election victories.

The vote — with Brown prevailing 90-88 — occurred in opposition to the backdrop of the GOP’s unexpectedly poor displaying within the 2022 midterms, when it received fewer than anticipated U.S. Home seats and didn’t recapture a U.S. Senate majority.

In Kansas, the GOP holds a voter registration benefit, which signifies that Democrats win large races by attracting votes from reasonable Republicans and impartial voters, whereas Republicans usually prevail when the social gathering is unified.

“We have to have extra unity,” state Rep. Patrick Penn, a Wichita Republican, instructed fellow GOP committee members. “That is the crux of it.”

Some Republicans framed the competition between Brown and Van Etten as a struggle between an anti-establishment wing and the institution.

The infighting forward of Saturday’s vote was particularly intense in Johnson County, within the Kansas Metropolis space, the state’s most populous county and residential for each Brown and retiring State Chair Mike Kuckelman. The county’s prosperous suburbs as soon as have been GOP strongholds, however since 2018, they’ve turn into conspicuously extra Democratic — and have been essential to Kelly’s and Davids’ victories.

The Johnson County GOP’s new chair, a Brown ally involved in regards to the county’s “purple creep,” instructed GOP state committee members that Kuckelman had been “completely abhorrent” in his therapy of Brown. Kuckelman fired again with a number of emails, together with one accusing Brown of being gentle in opposing abortion and supporting gun rights.

With the Republican Nationwide Committee, McDaniel overcame opposition from the ultra-Make America Nice Once more wing of the social gathering regardless of having been picked for the job in 2016 by former President Donald Trump.

In Michigan, two statewide GOP candidates who denied President Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020 have been in search of social gathering places of work forward of a conference subsequent weekend. In Nebraska final 12 months, Republicans who assist Trump fired the state chair throughout a tumultuous conference following a Trump-backed candidate’s loss within the GOP major for governor.

Brown has promoted unfounded theories that Trump’s supporters have used to bolster the previous president’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. He’s a building contractor who served on the Johnson County Fee earlier than shedding his seat in 2020.

Brown misplaced the GOP major for secretary of state to Republican incumbent Scott Schwab, who has vouched for the integrity of Kansas elections.

Van Etten, a retired audiologist, served on the RNC from 2008 to 2020. She is also a former member of the state board that oversees Kansas’ greater training system.

She promised state committee members a “very aggressive” program of constructing native social gathering organizations: “We’re prepared and keen to unite the social gathering.”

One supporter, conservative Kansas Metropolis-area economist, researcher and advisor Michael Austin, mentioned: “We’d like expertise. We’d like connections.”

In the course of the state committee assembly, Kuckelman defended present social gathering leaders’ report, noting that the social gathering has no debt.

Kim Borchers, a longtime Topeka activist who serves on the RNC, defended McDaniel and pushed again pointedly on complaints in opposition to the social gathering institution. She had the state committee members with greater than 5 years’ of expertise stand.

“Welcome to the institution,” she mentioned. “I name that dedication.”