Kansas is not the only state to face a three-way governor’s race this year.
There are three names on the Alaska ballot as well. One is incumbent Alaska governor and Independent candidate Bill Walker who finds himself challenged by Democrat Mark Begich and Republican Mike Dunleavy.
But what makes the Alaska race different from the Kansas race is the fact that the independent candidate in Alaska announced he was dropping out of the race and endorsing the Democrat.
Walker came to the conclusion that he would simply be a spoiler in a three-way race and that, in his words, “Alaskans deserve a competitive race.” Walker knows that his positions are more in line with Democrat Mark Begich than with Republican Mike Dunleavy. He realized that Begich had a better chance of winning than he did and that he and Begich would simply split the moderate vote, handing the election to conservative Dunleavy.
Following Walker’s decision, there were tweets aplenty here in Kansas urging independent Greg Orman to do the same. Orman, who has not gone beyond 10% of voters in multiple polls, is likely to play the role of spoiler and hand the Kansas governor’s race to Kris Kobach.
And in big news today, Orman’s treasurer resigns, endorses Laura Kelly!
The Wichita Eagle reports that Greg Orman’s campaign treasurer, former state Senator Tim Owens, has resigned from the Orman campaign and endorsed Democrat Laura Kelly. In a press release from the Kelly campaign, Owens said, “This is a critical election for Kansas. We cannot risk the future of our state.” Click here to read the Eagle story.
All of this leads us to remind ourselves that a lot is at stake in this election. To that end, we’d like to share an article we published in our last print edition of EDTALK, “Orman? Kobach? What about Orbach?”
