Greg Orman’s entrance created problems from the beginning

The entrance of Greg Orman into the race at the end of 2017 created a significant problem from the beginning. In September 2017, it was pretty well known that Greg Orman was considering a run for Kansas governor. He had made some calls to Democratic donors, and largely been rebuffed. The calls were all similar: “You don’t have anyone better,” but Democratic donors made their calls back to party officers and friends, elected officials and others. Orman’s early rumblings created two massive problems for Kansas Democratic members, the first was that Orman was a major funder of the Save Kansas Coalition, an effort that helped to elect numerous Democrats and Moderate Republicans in 2016. The Save Kansas coalition would be significantly diminished in 2018, putting a lot of Democratic and Moderate Republican House seats at risk. The second was that Orman’s entrance would influence donors to Kansas Democratic efforts. Many would say: “with two pro-choice candidates on the ballot, the Republicans just walk into office.”

We’ll get to the first problem later—the diminished role of the Save Kansas Coalition—and jump straight to the second, more public, problem — the fact that common wisdom said this would strongly benefit Kobach presented both a problem and an opportunity. Meeting with political scientists and those who help us do data modeling in November of 2017, we were given some good and bad news. Greg Orman’s candidacy would have tons of money but his support would be weak. Our target was that we needed to hold Greg Orman under 8 percent, preferably under 6 percent. If Orman could get above 8 percent, we couldn’t find a way in our models for a Democratic candidate to succeed.

Democratic fury with Orman, though, was significant. Many Democratic party voters in our groups blamed Orman, in part, for the 2014 loss of Paul Davis and the election of Sam Brownback to a second term. Knowing all of this, speaking with leadership in our party as well as in the House and Senate, it became clear that we had to, from the very beginning, frame Greg Orman as both a spoiler putting the state at risk, and a failed Democratic candidate.

During the 2014 run for US Senate, Orman had clearly articulated his views on LGBTQ rights and pro-choice stances; it would be impossible for him to be seen as a Republican. His attempts to be seen as “in the middle” might help his case and bring him above the danger zone number—if he could show actual polling above 10 percent early, there would be a real risk that Democratic members could feel as though they had no shot, that Orman would eat away too many Democratic votes and the election of Kris Kobach would be unstoppable, a consequence that would damage us in all other races. If Orman could ever show a poll putting him near or above 20 percent, we knew that we would be in real trouble—not only would Kobach be governor, but the Democratic and moderate Republican losses in the state house would be terrible. With Save Kansas out, and a potentially depressed Democratic voter base knowing there wasn’t a shot to win, we could see the math that would significantly shrink our caucus with no way to pick back up races. We would see moderate Republicans wiped out in the primary, and our state would be the most conservative it had ever been.

Framing Greg Orman

While the plan to frame Greg Orman was a decision a lot of us took on from the beginning as critical, that isn’t to say that we didn’t have doubts. In a phone call with then-candidate Josh Svaty, I discussed the problem of framing Greg Orman as a solidly pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ candidate who would siphon Democratic votes. Josh, a candidate for governor, was facing a hard time as women’s groups that favored Laura Kelly continued to ask questions about his anti-choice voting record as a state representative.

Continuing to discuss Orman as a “failed Democratic candidate” had a real risk—if Josh Svaty became our nominee, Svaty argued, Orman could use this same attack against our candidate, dividing the Democratic vote.

Certainly, there was truth to Svaty’s argument. Data we had from December 2017 and January 2018, however, told us that the only viable way to hold Greg Orman’s numbers down, however, would require two steps. First, he would need to go farther to the left in order to try and win back Democratic voters, to be seen as “the true left” which would alienate Republicans, keeping his support low. Second, we hoped that Democratic, let’s say, fury against Orman might attract some Republicans to him who would simply say “I can’t vote for a Democrat, can’t vote for Kobach, but if Democratic people hate this guy, good enough for me.”

There was another potential problem: Governor Jeff Colyer. All of our data initially said that Kris Kobach would waltz through the Republican primary. Kobach’s inept campaign, however, kept bungling it. On this point, frankly, I have to thank Greg Orman. Orman’s dark money PAC, the Grow Kansas Fund, came in swinging for Kobach in the primary, trying to pick his opponents. The Grow Kansas PAC sent mail attacking Jeff Colyer and Laura Kelly. Effectively, they wanted a campaign of Kobach-Svaty-Orman, having told others they believed this was their best possible outcome.

I disagreed with that analysis; frankly, I think no matter who was our candidate, our plan would have worked out. In polling done for the party, however, we never had our primary very close. Still, the party did everything possible to be neutral. No public statements in support of any candidate, numerous open debates and invites, and access to party resources for all campaigns—including the teenagers.

We would present a party that was open to all. It was too bad, we thought and said, that Greg Orman didn’t see how open our party was, if only he had participated as a Democratic candidate, we’d tell the press repeatedly, we’d invite him on stage, he could talk and work with us — heck, he could have just been our candidate, we were friendly, he was brash and rushed.

Primary doomsday

As the primary approached, Democratic and Republican members in the House saw a major, inescapable problem coming: the significantly diminished impact of Orman’s funding for moderate candidates through the Save Kansas Coalition and other groups couldn’t quickly be replaced. Moderate Republican candidates in Western Kansas and Johnson County, some new legislators and old, were going into an election with far fewer resources and, thanks to Trump’s involvement on the Republican side and active Democratic primaries, fewer crossover voters—Democratic party members who registered as Republicans to save moderates in primaries.

In July of 2018, appeals were sent out as far as we could go to save some moderates, but in some cases, we knew the battle was lost. Worse, we knew that many Democratic candidates in tough districts would have incredible bull’s-eyes on their back, and, fewer outside voices to help them.

Talking with those who worked with moderate Republicans, a last-ditch effort to get Greg Orman out of the race took over. If Orman could go back and truly focus on a sane Kansas, there might be a chance to rescue some House members. In early July, thanks to a few Kansans, myself and my spouse included, we began releasing polls about the governor's race frequently. Using PPP, Civiqs, and others, we tried to set the narrative: Greg Orman has no path to a victory. Candidate Orman, in earlier stops, told audiences if there was no path to a win, he would gracefully drop out of the race.

After sending his campaign our polling numbers directly with no response, we finally decided we had to start giving them straight to the press, who would write stories and continue to point out: his campaign was doomed from the beginning. There could still be hope that Greg Orman could get out of the race and go back and try to save the Kansas House.

The primary, however, turned into a culling. Moderate Republicans across the state were wiped out; the Kansas Statehouse will return far more conservative as moderates left with fewer resources and divided primaries plus an independent couldn’t hold on. Republican conservatives who didn’t have to spend as much in primaries were in incredible shape to take on Democratic candidates in the November election. In efforts to protect the sanity of the Kansas House, Orman’s candidacy had a spectacularly high cost. His campaign promise of “make Kansas sane” had instead played a major role in making Kansas government far less sane—and those costs would continue in the fall.

Democratic leadership challenges Orman’s candidacy

There would still be a chance to protect the House candidates and our candidates, especially if we could keep Greg Orman off the Kansas ballot. On the evening of the primary, I received a call and had a discussion with former members of the Greg Orman campaign. These out of state paid canvassers reported that they had “bailed” on the Orman campaign, saying that after pushback from people when they collected signatures they just left their clipboards and split, not waiting for them to be notarized or to sign off on them, a requirement under Kansas law.

Eventually, an Orman campaign staff member sent us two vital pieces of information. The first, a photograph of a signature collection sheet notarized with absolutely no signatures on it. The second, a set of sheets all signed by the same person collecting signatures in all sorts of different counties … on the same day. What had happened, we were told, is that the initial collector of signatures, a paid out of state canvasser, had simply dropped his or her stuff and left, and that someone else signed all of the sheets and stood for them to be notarized.

This would of course, violate Kansas rules, and would likely void large amounts of signatures. In a debate the question was raised: would it turn off more voters if we fight Orman’s signature collection, or would him being dropped from the ballot help our governor candidate and Kansas House, candidates? In the end, we decided that challenging the signatures was in order, even if we did not succeed, it would highlight that the Orman campaign was trying to sell itself as professional, run by a professional, but was behaving like an unprepared campaign that was everything it said it was against.

Unfortunately, the campaign members within the Orman campaign who supplied the material decided at the last minute that they couldn’t come forward and testify to the state election board, noting it would “ruin their career” and that they might “never work again.” This moment made it impossible for Greg Orman to drop out of the campaign; He viewed it as such an insult that we had challenged his signatures that from that point on, the campaign became more openly bitter toward Democratic candidate Laura Kelly.

We stepped up our release of polling data. While my credit cards certainly regret it, my wife and I funded a series of polls we released frequently straight to the press, just as information as to where the race stood. Our goal was to make sure that at least every other week from the primary on there would be news stories about how Greg Orman was in distant third and that the race was close. “It is critical to vote Democratic.” That needed to be our message. Not just to win the governor’s race, but in hope, we could save margins within the Kansas House, and definitely if we wanted to help our congressional candidates.

An Audience of one

For all of this to work, we needed one person in particular to believe our story. It wasn’t the Democratic base, it wasn’t the media. We just needed one person to believe what we were selling. That one person? Kris Kobach.

Before joining the campaign, Danedri Herbert, who went on to become Kobach’s communication director, had posited that Greg Orman’s entry into the race would almost certainly hand the governor’s race to the Republicans. Knowing that Danedri believed this, it wasn’t hard for us to think that another individual — her soon to be boss — also believed this.

The more we complained, loudly, the more editorials that went out, Daily Kos posts, attempts to remove Orman from the ballot, the more confident Kris Kobach became. He became so confident that in a debate at the Kansas State Fair he laughed at the audience and told them to “go eat Doritos”. Kobach, we believed, more than anyone, bought our narrative. He bought our narrative so hard that he did us one better — he started openly promoting Greg Orman as a “man with good ideas” agreeing with him in later debates, allowing us to do something we didn’t even imagine early on, frame them as a team.

It was incredibly effective for our base, but more importantly, it meant our audience of one, Kris Kobach, bought what I and others were selling hook, line and sinker. In weeks of calls with the press, we maintained the same attitude “this race is INCREDIBLY tight, dang that Greg Orman”. Until about a week and a half before election day, when reporter Brad Cooper, with the Sunflower State Journal, started doggedly chasing how firm the polling numers were for the race.

“Stop selling,” Cooper told me in a phone call, as his own queries turned up concerned Republicans. But it really didn’t matter. For weeks, the frantic Democratic push against Greg Orman had accomplished everything some of us hoped for — it galvanized our base and, frankly, it made the Kobach campaign incredibly lazy — more than we ever could have dreamed possible.

The Orman disaster that we couldn’t fix

The Orman candidacy, however, created one disaster we couldn’t find a way to fix. Without those outside voices and a large, empowered Save Kansas Coalition, Democratic candidates in rural districts found themselves incredibly outgunned. No matter how we ran the math, we couldn’t gamble with making sure we defeated Kobach, and so resources on the Democratic side were tight, very tight.

In 2016, Democrats sat across the table from Sybil Orman, who helped hand out donation checks to candidates across the state, seeking to unseat bad Republicans. That simply didn’t happen in 2018. Democratic organizations became strong in Johnson County, Kansas, to the point where money and resources for their candidates was strong, resulting in numerous pickups.

For rural Democratic candidates though, the void that was left simply couldn’t be filled. In 2016 they had the benefit of radio, mail, and digital campaigns at their back. In 2018 those resources were diminished, and campaigns found themselves fending for themselves.

Several rural Democratic House members went down to defeat. If I have any significant regret from 2018, it is this: we couldn’t find a way to cover both, to work to elect a Democratic governor and have the resources needed to also protect the Kansas House. The void was simply too big to do both. What makes me most sick to my stomach is that the resources required to protect the governor, and her campaign that needed to happen resulted in one other casualty: Kansas second congressional district.

The Paul Davis campaign, which ran a strong effort in a conservative district, had trouble getting above the fold and, lacking a rural turnout engine did exceptionally well in major cities and found itself faltering in the house districts that had less support in 2018 than 2016.

While the numbers will take a while, I wonder, strongly, if Orman had stayed out of the governor’s race things might be very different. Kansas Democratic House lost two members in Kansas second congressional district—Debbie Deere and Adam Lusker. Paul Davis lost second congressional district by a hair. The growth of conservatives in the primaries who went unchallenged with fewer resources, and fewer resources for moderate Republicans and Democratic candidates meant that Paul Davis was forced with a difficult turnout task and a fired-up conservative base eager to support their local candidate and willing to pinch their nose for a congressional candidate.

What next?

Governor-elect Laura Kelly has called for civility. And, with that in mind, I welcome Greg Orman to come back to the land of reason, and that we hope he truly believes in a sane Kansas. We welcomed Greg Orman in 2014 because he offered a chance for a more sane US Senate. And, at the end of the day, there are more issues I agree with Greg Orman on than disagree.

Still, while he rages at the Democratic leadership for challenging his signatures and for working hard to make him into a spoiler, in both rhetoric and fact, he has to understand we have a job to do. And our job was to protect the state of Kansas.

Was there another way, another tactic, we could have used to make sure his campaign did not damage Laura Kelly? To make his campaign a potential target for angry Republicans who couldn’t vote for Kobach? If there is a strategy, a better one, I’d be open to it—but no one involved could come up with a better plan.

I have spent the last few days conflicted. Happy, elated, that Kris Kobach has been defeated. That mixes with the melancholy of the happenings within our Kansas House, and that much needed support for Paul Davis didn’t materialize, in part because Democratic resources weren’t strong enough to help pull that seat out while we tried to save our House and governor races.

In the final runs of data available to us, the week before election day, we could see Laura Kelly beginning to pull away. In a message to the Kelly campaign the day before election day, I said: “Five Points.” Campaign Manager Jordy Zeigler had one response: “Jesus (Fingers crossed emoji).

Finally, it is important to remember that party people—like myself—are not heroes or planners and that our role is to do what we feel benefits our state. Too often, in campaign victories, men and others take credit for the work that women do, and that should not happen this time. Kansas campaigns were led by powerful women like Jordy Zeigler, candidates like Laura Kelly and Sharice Davids. Our state party, and people like myself played a role, but it was a small one. It was truly the leadership of women, from campaign managers to candidates, that led to this victory.

I was proud to work outside of these great campaigns and on behalf of the state organization. I’m proud of the work that Kansas Democratic members put in. And, when, or if, Greg Orman is ready to come back and help us fight for a better Kansas in 2020, I’ll welcome him and anyone else who will work to benefit our great state.