Kansas’ Governor Race heats up as Republican nominee launches newest ad

TOPEKA – The campaign for Kansas Attorney General and Republican Nominee for Governor Derek Schmidt has released another TV ad for the 2022 Kansas governor’s race. The ad will start on television on September 28, and will be a part of a sustained media campaign through the duration of the race.

“Nothing is more important than our kids, and we need to put kids and parents first,” Schmidt said. “We must constitutionally fund our schools. But fully funding schools doesn’t work if you lock the students out of them. It doesn’t work if you lock the parents out of them either.”

After being the first governor in America to lock kids out of schools for the remaining school year in March 2020, and despite experts cautioning against it, Kelly attempted to extend her statewide school lockdowns into a second academic year. These efforts were ultimately blocked by the Kansas State Board of Education. Board members rebuked Kelly’s solution as “problematic” and said Kelly should be “listening to the doctors, not the politicians” when making decisions about reopening. 

In the wake of Kelly’s school closures, student achievement and mental health outcomes have suffered. More than 34 percent of Kansas students are testing at the lowest possible level in math and 30 percent in reading. A shocking 32 percent of Kansas teens responded they have seriously considered suicide, a record-high number and nearly 40 percent increase since 2015.

About 15,000 students have left public schools since 2019 after years of static enrollment, and Kansas now faces its worst teacher shortage in state history.

In April, Kelly vetoed the Parents Bill of Rights after calling it “the worst thing we can possibly be doing” in unscripted remarks to the press. The bill Kelly vetoed states parents have the right to direct the education, upbringing, care, and mental health of their child and enumerates rights reserved in state law for parents with respect to their child.