The New United Kansas Party
” The United Kansas Party’s focus is on economic opportunity, affordable health care, quality education, infrastructure improvement, protecting our natural resources, protecting citizens’ rights, and coming together to get things done.”
In Kansas, the second biggest political bloc in the state isn’t the Democratic party, it’s the Unaffiliateds. According to the Secretary of State’s office, 43% of registered voters are Republicans, 26% are Democrats, and 29% are Unaffiliated. Apparently, many Kansans are disenchanted with the major political parties. However, they often register with a major party, because the Republican or Democratic party in their district is so strong that the only way to have a say is by voting in the major parties’ primaries. But there’s a problem with this system. It’s polarizing, making it harder for our government to make the compromises necessary to function in the best interests of average Kansans.
I’ve been a Republican my entire life. Lately, I’ve been feeling that my party has been taken over by its extreme wing. The more it pushes for tax breaks for the wealthy or tougher restrictions on women’s health choices, the more it alienates the more moderate Kansans. They are the middle-class citizens who carry most of the tax burden, and who want the government to make decisions based on science and reason, not on polarizing social issues or which lobbyists donate the most to their campaigns.
From 2019-2021, I was proud to serve the 93rd House district -where I worked to manage our state’s resources wisely and invest in our future. Given where the extreme party leaders and wealthy lobbyists wanted to go, that wasn’t always easy. As I gear up to run for the Kansas Senate, I’m encouraged by a new development here in Kansas. There’s a new political party, the United Kansas Party, that has submitted enough petition signatures to qualify for the ballot. Its focus is on economic opportunity, affordable health care, quality education, infrastructure, protecting our natural resources, and coming together to get things done. Its goal is to bridge the political divide, and it’s a party you may wish to consider.
What makes United Kansas different from other third parties is that it doesn’t want to spoil elections by running its standalone candidates, who may have little chance of winning outright. Instead, it aims to revive fusion voting, a voting option in Kansas that was more common until about midcentury. Fusion voting allows a candidate to be nominated by more than one party. Each candidate’s votes, no matter from which party, are then tallied to determine the winner.
To avoid being a spoiler, the United Kansas party plans to nominate the major party candidate who most closely matches their values. Each general election ballot would then have third-party candidates, a Democratic candidate, a Republican candidate, and a United Kansas candidate who is also the same as a major party candidate. That would allow citizens who are more in the middle to vote for the United Kansas candidate and, in close elections, the United Kansas candidate might garner enough votes to swing the election. That is enough to make the major parties consider running a more mainstream candidate. In districts dominated by one party, the United Kansas Party could just nominate its own candidate, which would keep a partisan major party candidate from running unopposed.
In Senate District 26, I am running as a Republican candidate, and I have also been nominated by the United Kansas party. If I make it to the general election, fusion voting could help me draw the support of many of the unaffiliated voters in my district who agree with the United Kansas Party’s values. People in Kansas are looking for a change. The emergence of the United Kansas Party, plus fusion voting, could make change possible.
(C) 2024 – J.C. Moore on
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