By Vicki Kline
Kansas GOP Governor’s Debate streamed live June 5, 2026, from Johnson County Community College.
The Moderator was Fox 4’s John Holt.
Participants were House Speaker Ty Masterson, former County Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara, Kansas Businessman Philip Sarnecki, and Secretary of State Scott Schwab.
It was streamed live across the entire state of Kansas through Fox 4’s affiliates in all 105 counties in Kansas.
The moderator, John Holt, explained the rules.
60 seconds to respond to his questions, 30 seconds for a follow-up question and up to 30 seconds for any rebuttals.
When the candidate and audience heard a bell, the time was up. A random card draw determined Scott Schwab to begin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOYzHwRPWpk Debate begins at the 41:38 mark.
HOLT: We’re gonna begin with… well, you say data, I say data centers. As it were, signs like this gone up all over the state, this picture from around Wichita. This one, of the latest post data center locations. Critics are concerned about power and water usage. Now, you all support guardrails. You said that throughout this campaign protect electric ratepayers, and water use. Your approaches are a little different. So, Mr. Schwab., let’s start with you. You said you feel data centers should be under local control. Local, local, local, was what you said back in February. Explain why it should be in a local, not state control, and be specific in the next 60 seconds.
SCHWAB: Sure, and thank you, John. Thank you, Nextstar, thank you Johnson County JCCC, and my wife who normally doesn’t come to these things. She says it’s often like watching C-SPAN, but she can’t change the channel. So, I’m just glad she is able to be here with us tonight.
The reason why is because what is good for Eastern Kansas or South Central may not be good for Western Kansas. And every time you try to do a monolith policy out of Topeka, it works about as good as when you do a federal monolith policy coming out of D.C. It just doesn’t work.
There are some communities that want data centers, and they embrace them, they’re not in the news that much. There are some that don’t. So that county commission or those city officials, they’re duly elected, they can be held accountable for the decisions they make. Opposed to raising property taxes. That’s a legitimate conversation, but it’s not a conversation in Topeka. That’s made by the locals, because, otherwise, people are not gonna like their policy.
HOLT: Thank you, Mr. Schwab. Mr. Masterson, you’re up next. You want to, quote, “make sure data centers are not costing the locals another dime in energy cost.” That said, would you require them to provide their own power? You have 60 seconds.
MASTERSON: Oh, absolutely. I’m sure the answer is absolutely, right? I mean, the overarching issue now that we have in the world is what I agree with President Trump on. One of the reasons he endorsed me is that we do have this battle with China, you know, a Cold War, a tech Cold War, if you will, and it’s a battle that we can’t lose.
But ultimately, the decision has to be made at the local level. The final say needs to rest there. There are places that make sense and places they don’t, but they should provide for their own power, or pay for or access their own power. The key is that no costs come off on any of the locals in the area. They don’t use resources unduly, and you would never allow for eminent domain for private usage.
So these guardrails are there, and then if the locals want them, we need to be participating in the Cold War.
HOLT: Thank you, Ms. O’Hara. You posted this on X recently: day one, you’d issue a statewide moratorium on data centers. Are you concerned that a moratorium, any kind of delay, would simply send them to other states, who would then reap the economic benefits of those centers?
O’HARA: Thank you. First of all, I want to go back just a little bit. In 2025, our Kansas Legislature passed SB98, (1) which gives data centers 20 years of a sales‑tax exemption. That was actually one of the reasons that we have such a stampede coming into Kansas on these data centers.
And then at the local level, due to state statutes, the locals are giving these data centers huge property‑tax abatements. So, the problem is that they’re being showered with tax abatements, and every time that you give an abatement, it’s gonna cost somebody else to provide the services for that structure — and that is you and me.
And as far as the increase in power, an example is Phoenix right now, they just said that they were going… they came up with a compromise. (Bell sounds)
HOLT: Thank you. A quick follow-up. The question was, do you have concerns that they would move to other states, where the economic construction, the jobs, and then the money that they would spend in those places would go? So, is it a permanent moratorium, a short‑term moratorium, and even then, wouldn’t the developers just move on?
O’HARA: We need to have the moratorium until we get a hold of these tax incentives, because they need to pay their fair share. And if they want to go to another state that wants to hand them out all of these goodies, it isn’t going to be good for Kansas.
HOLT: Thank you. Mr. Sarnecki, do you support giving voters in each county the power to decide whether they want the data centers, that is part of the plan you recently unveiled? We’d have to do this with a patchwork of 105 counties, with the complexities of what developers might be dealing with. Don’t you run the risk that these developers will say, “We’re moving on from here”? You have 60 seconds.
SARNECKI: Yeah, thank you, John. First of all, Charlotte is right. The reason that the data centers are pouring in is because Ty Masterson and the career politicians gave the data centers 20‑year tax breaks last year. This is to go along with all the tax breaks they’ve given to the wind farms and the green energy, et cetera.
And so, we’ve come out with a five‑year plan. The technology on this is changing very, very quickly. And our plan, I don’t believe that people in Johnson County should tell the people in Lincoln or Goodland whether or not they should have a data center, and vice versa. I do think that people locally should decide that.
And our plan, which Ty just basically mentioned and stole my plan, is no undue burden on water resources, no increase in electricity, no eminent domain. And then if the people of Goodland, Kansas, if they want a data center, then they can absolutely have that data center, as long as those parameters are in place.
But we need the parameters over that five‑year period of time while this is changing dramatically. Take a look at what Nvidia just came out with, we’re gonna have data centers in small rooms in 10 years.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. You are allowed a rebuttal — up to 15 seconds.
MASTERSON: 30 seconds
HOLT: Okay, we will let you have 30 seconds.
MASTERSON: I would like my 30 seconds. The more I learn from my friend Phil, the more I think he is a Democrat plant. (Moans from audience) Thank you for bringing that on. All he has is half‑truths and Democrat lies, and I know why he’s angry, because President Trump evaluated this race. It was not a real challenge. He evaluated this race, and he completely and totally endorsed me and wanted absolutely nothing to do with Philip Sarnecki. I understand why he’s angry, but he’s actually been funding Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer.
HOLT: Thank you. Let’s move on. Okay. Okay. I’m gonna give you 15 seconds. (to Sarnecki)
SARNECKI: I5 seconds for all that?
HOLT: We have to keep moving.
SARNECKI: Go ahead. Okay. Well, Ty posted something. By the way, my mom’s here tonight, so call me a liar, be very, very careful, because she’s not gonna like that. And I’m not lying. You can look this up: I have made one donation to a Democrat in my life. It was an insurance commissioner 15 years ago for $250, look it up. By the way, that lie came out the day after I turned Ty down to be his Lieutenant Governor. So notice the timing of it.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. (Cheers) Now, folks, remember, your cheering takes time away from our candidates. Let’s go to the Chiefs now, we are the Chiefs Kingdom, come across the state line. So, let’s do a little poll here. I’m gonna ask you to raise your hand. Who supports the Kansas deal with the Chiefs?
All right, we have Mr. Masterson and Mr. Schwab. Ms. O’Hara and Mr. Sarnecki do not. Mr. Masterson, why did you support the deal with the Chiefs? You have 60 seconds.
MASTERSON: It’s about the jobs. It’s about the jobs, the billions of investments, the hundreds of millions of new tax revenue coming in. Our kids need the opportunity. That is, again, why the president endorsed me. He understands we need not just things made in America; we need investment in Kansas.
We were trucking money out of here through Missouri, and this is a huge opportunity, and we didn’t have to raise a single tax to bring the NFL to Kansas and bring all that excitement, billions in outside investment. I’m not talking about any kind of infrastructure stadium, but billions in outside investment coming in.
We want our kids to stay here. We’ve been exporting our children. We need jobs and opportunities, and that’s what this brings.
HOLT: Thank you. Just a follow-up, if I may. You talk about jobs, not a single tax being raised — but the Chiefs won’t pay a single property tax because they don’t own the stadiums; the Sports Authority does. Wyandotte County and Johnson County have some of the highest property taxes in the state. How is that a good deal if property taxes here are still high? We’ll talk about those in a moment. You have 30 seconds.
MASTERSON: Sure. It’s hundreds of millions of income tax off the NFL, and there’s going to be millions of property tax paid in all the ancillary development. Look at the Kansas Speedway, where those 1,200 acres paid almost nothing 30 years ago. Now that same 1,200 acres throws off $30 million dollars in property tax and a billion in taxable sales.
The problem, they don’t have any. We’re not getting our property taxes. You do not have a local government that won’t do it; the money is there.
HOLT: Ms. O’Hara, you did not raise your hand… to explain why, you have 60 seconds.
O’HARA: Uh, right. So, I have been against this from the very beginning, when you passed the legislation. That was in 2024, when we had special session, and that was supposed to be on property taxes, and then it was all about giving professional sports teams these sweetheart deals.
It doesn’t work. We’ve been trying this for 40 years, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s the Chiefs, or if it’s Panasonic, or if it’s Sa Nano, a Chinese company, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t work. It was supposed to broaden the tax base and then lower taxes for everyone.
Forty years, we passed this in 1986. Has anybody seen their property taxes or other taxes go down? I don’t think so. It doesn’t work. It is a false narrative. And post‑legislative audit shows that at least 70% of these companies would be here anyway.
I mean, we gave $154,000 to Fiserv, Inc. to come in, or to Sprint Center. (2) They lost 70% of their value in the last 12 months.
HOLT: Let me do a quick follow‑up, if you don’t mind. And he likes to note, for Mr. Masterson, who said there are only three teams right now in the NFL where the owners built the stadiums. That’s just the way it’s done in the NFL. You have a team competing, two states, Kansas and Missouri, jobs, a billion dollars. The Chiefs said they provide the economy.
Did the state really get a bad deal at the end of the day, when the Chiefs aren’t paying 40%? Thirty seconds to respond.
O’HARA: Absolutely, this is the bad deal. We’re going to own a stadium, and we’re getting $7 million a year that goes into the maintenance of that stadium. We’re getting nothing, we’re getting nothing out of that stadium, and we’re going to have to be responsible for it.
There are no property taxes coming to the state from that stadium. The deal was way too sweet. I mean, you read articles all across the United States, it’s the sweetest deal that’s been given to any sports team in the United States.
HOLT: Thank you. Mr. Sarnecki, you didn’t raise your hand either — 60 seconds to explain why.
SARNECKI: Yeah, it’s not that I’m against the Chiefs coming here. It is the timing of the deal, and it’s definitely not the deal that I would have made. I think this is what happens when you get career politicians negotiating business deals for the first time in their lives and it’s the largest business deal in the history of the state.
Our economy, CNBC last year ranked our economy as a state 48th, and they gave us an F. Moody’s said we’re already in a recession. And this deal that’s happening here, here’s one of the things that Ty and Laura did together, the career politicians: they gave themselves, with our economy where it is, highest income tax in the entire region, property tax totally out of control, as everybody knows, they gave themselves a luxury suite paid for by all of you, the taxpayers.
And I just think that is tone‑deaf to what’s going on out there right now. And it’s not, now, here’s the reality: we have the deal, the deal is done. And my question would be, to make this deal try to work, do you want a businessperson doing it, or do you want a career politician to do it?
HOLT: Let me ask you this, though, as a follow‑up to pretty much what I had for Ms. O’Hara. And that’s just the way business is done in the NFL. In 2019, they published public‑private partnerships, and the Chiefs — a billion dollars a year in economic benefits. In the long run, is it a bad deal for Kansas? Thirty seconds.
SARNECKI: I think it remains to be seen, but the problem is where our economy is right now, where our property taxes are right now, where our income taxes are right now. The largest deal ever done in the history of sports stadiums was $1.2 billion by the Tennessee Titans. Our state is giving the Chiefs about $3 billion to do this deal. Now, again, I think Missouri had about $1.4 billion, and I just think we could have done better in negotiating the deal, and we didn’t negotiate a big deal.
HOLT: Mr. Masterson, 15 seconds. I gotta keep moving here.
MASTERSON: My mother taught me a half‑truth was a complete lie, and that is what you’re hearing tonight. And even the president knows — you directed a path that directed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and others. Buck stops somewhere. It’s a joke.
HOLT: Let’s focus on the economy. Mr. Schwab, you did raise your hand.
SCHWAB: I did. So, let’s talk. So, when you’re saying we’re giving the Chiefs this money, that’s not true, there are no upfront costs. This is much like we started with the racetrack, and if you look at what’s going on by the Legends out in Wyandotte County, it was an absolute win. And the NFL’s a better investment than NASCAR, there’s no question about that.
And we didn’t take anybody’s land away from them in this deal. This was a private transaction with a public‑private partnership. What you have is, in that area, we get no sales taxes, it’s grass. Clark Hunt, I respect him a lot and I’ve known him for years, when you put a stadium there, you put in 25% of the retail around it. That’s tax revenue you’re not getting today.
So, to say, “We’ll give it to him”, we’re not getting it now anyway. Kansas needs jobs, Wyandotte needs jobs, and if you want to get out of the perceived recession in the state of Kansas, you have to make investments in deals like this. And this costs us no SGF. Nobody’s taxes are going up.
HOLT: Follow‑up, if I may. We’re also not gonna get property taxes from the Chiefs, for the headquarters or the stadium. Was that a bad deal?
SCHWAB: No, we are getting all the retail around it, the property taxes, are being reclassified, which is now AG, which is a very low rate, to commercial. So, it’s going to help those communities overcome. They’re not getting much revenue now because it’s just AG (agriculture). AG doesn’t pay as much in property taxes in the metro areas as commercial does. The big sticking points, of course, are home appraisals spending. So, we have a multiple-choice question for you tonight. Should be on the screen in front of you, there.
HOLT: Would you cap county appraisal increases? Give voters the power to block spending increases? Do both, or neither, and why? Ms. O’Hara, you’re up first. Sixty seconds, please.
O’HARA: Thank you very much. Well, again, we need to go back to 1986, because this is when we passed reclassification and equalization, which brought us annual property tax reappraisal. And at the same time, we passed the economic development.
There are two things that are happening. There are so many properties that have been abated and that are out of the tax base. Basically, we have all these holes in the boat, and we are losing a lot of money. For example, in 2024 in Johnson County, just on industrial revenue bonds and tax‑increment finance districts, it cost the public coffers $108 million dollars in one year, and it’s gone up astronomically since then.
So, we have got to stop giving these tax abatements because it doesn’t work. Like I said, we’ve given it 40 years. It just flat doesn’t work. But I would, I would go. (Bell rings)
HOLT: Fifteen seconds to explain. Okay — based on our multiple‑choice quiz here, what would you do?
O’HARA: I would do neither; I would abolish the property tax. I would go with Senator Murphy’s, uh — abolish property tax and have a use tax, because our property tax system is broken. I don’t know how to fix it.
HOLT: Thank you. Mr. Sarnecki, would you cap appraisal increases? Give voters the power to block local spending? Do both or neither? You have 60 seconds.
SARNECKI: Well, let’s be clear. First of all, as I go around the state — whether Lincoln, Goodland, Wamego, Pratt, Johnson County, Pottawatomie County, it doesn’t matter. This is the number one issue, and the number one concern for people. I’ve talked to so many people, ladies and people who have had to sell their homes because of their property tax increases.
And for three straight years, Ty Masterson and the career politicians have promised property tax relief. They said it’s a top issue, “We’re gonna get property tax relief done.” For three straight years they’ve said that. And for three straight years, how much property tax relief have the people at home received? How much property tax relief? That’s right, none.
However, green energy, wind farms, Panasonic, foreign companies, they’ve all gotten property tax relief. So, there’s property tax relief to be found, just not for the people of the state of Kansas. Do you know why that is? That is because of lobbyists and special interests that have Ty in their back pocket.
And by the way, I would do both, because you can’t just do the appraisal, because you still have a problem, and you have to cap the bank side as well.
HOLT: Otherwise, I’m gonna give Mr. Masterson 30 seconds to respond.
MASTERSON: Can I have my whole full minute to answer the question.
HOLT: No — 30 seconds. We’ll come back to you on that.
MASTERSON: So, third quick response is, we didn’t fail, the Senate performed. And that’s also why Trump endorsed me, sent me a letter telling us that our leadership, you know what, positioned Kansas as a model state in the nation to implement conservative values. That was in the letter from the White House, because we passed multiple times through the Senate.
By the way, we took the question “both,” right? You have to stop, because we are taxing on unrealized gains. We didn’t fail, we succeeded. A small group of Republicans, phony Republicans, they sided with the Democrats and stopped it in the House.
HOLT: All right, we’ll come back to you. Let’s go to Mr. Schwab. Would you cap spending, appraisals, neither, or both? Sixty seconds.
SCHWAB: Yeah. You do not want a static cap of the appraisal, it’s anti‑free‑market. It’s going to hurt real‑estate development and opportunity to grow our economy. And that’s in my BALL plan, which is Better Affordable Living by decreasing property taxes.
When you come out with a ready, detailed plan with nine points, and three points were introduced in the legislature this year, part of that is, every time they say they want to raise the mill levy, let the people in that jurisdiction vote on it. It gives protection for those people who voted for it. If it passes, clearly, they’re okay with their property taxes going up. If it fails, then you’re going to have to rein in spending.
It’s a win‑win for those local units of government and the voters. And other portions, with property taxes and evaluation systems completely jacked up, there’s no accountability. If you sell your property for less than the evaluation, where’s your property tax refund? You should get one. And that’s my BALL plan. If you go to Scott Schwab.com you will see more of our answers for property tax.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. Mr. Masterson, now to the question. Do you cap those appraisals, allow voters to block spending, neither or both? Sixty seconds.
MASTERSON: All of the above. You have to do both. You have to stop on the front and on the back. When you don’t cap, whether it’s the assessed value or the appraisal , you’re taxing somebody on an unrealized gain.
Had a neighbor across the street from me, told me he paid double in his property taxes alone. When he had an interest mortgage, his interest and his taxes combined were less when he paid his house off, not to mention insurance costs going through the roof.
But you have a guy that’s being literally taxed out of his house. And on the other end of that scale, you have my wife and I, we have six adult children, all choosing to spend their lives here in Kansas, to invest an interest in solving this problem, and they’re in trouble affording a home for the first time at their age.
Just crystal‑clear: property in Texas, Sunday, Texas, something has to be tackled. It cannot be ignored. And you’re going to have to have a front door on the appraisals or the assessed value, and you also have to have the voters stop outrageous spending.
HOLT: Let’s stay on the topic of taxes but reverse it now to spending. So, we’ll keep the same order here. The state is now on track to spend more than it collects in revenue over the next two fiscal years — more than a billion dollars, by my math, which isn’t always great, but I’ve come up with that, partly because of tax cuts and increased spending. You’re all talking tax cuts here, so what are we gonna target to get spending under control? Ms. O’Hara, you’ll start us off again — 60 seconds.
O’HARA: Thank you. Um, well, this ties into education. Everyone knows that our schools are absolutely in a spiral downward. And what are we going to do? And what I would do on that is I would close the State Department of Education, which costs $30 million dollars a year for paper‑shufflers.
But then we have to stop taking federal funds, and then that would stop the federalization of our education and then put that to the decision of the local district as to what the curriculum’s gonna be. That is 300 million dollars.
And then there is SB 254, which unfortunately passed but was vetoed by the governor, and unfortunately was not even brought for a vote for a veto override. SB 254 (3), which bans any public money going to illegal aliens, would have saved us $600 million dollars.
Then audits on SNAP and Medicaid, those are the favorite places for the scammers. We have got to block the holes, or we’re absolutely losing money.
HOLT: Thank you. Mr. Sarnecki, what spending would you target to bring the budget back in balance? Sixty seconds.
SARNECKI: Yeah. Well, let’s be clear, we have a $26 billion budget in the state of Kansas, and under Ty’s leadership in the last seven years, $10½ billion has been added to that $26 billion dollar in spending, as he’s presiding over a supermajority. Ty loves to spend your money.
In 2015, he signed off on Sam Brownback’s budget, which blew a $900 million dollar hole in the budget of the state of Kansas. He also got steamrolled by Laura Kelly on her budget, signed off on this this year. And as you said, we’ve already had four straight months where we’ve had more spending than we’re bringing in revenue. We’re running a deficit for four straight months in a row.
We will audit. One of the things I will do as governor, I will come in and audit every single department and agency with an outside auditor. I know the people who do it; we’ve already talked to somebody in New Jersey who’s done two states. And we’re gonna get out the waste, fraud, abuse, and it’s about $2.5 to $4 billion out of that $26 billion budget.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. Anything else, a quick follow‑up here, that you would cut without auditing? What would you focus on right now?
SARNECKI: Yeah, a few seconds. Well, you have to go in and audit first. You have to do some fact‑finding to know exactly where and how much you would cut. But mostly, there’s a lot of — uh — a lot of waste in our, um… our, um… sorry — our, um… department. Exactly. Oh, it’s a good one — exactly.
HOLT: I’ve got to keep this moving — fifteen seconds.
MASTERSON: I appreciate he’s a bit of an angry elf and giving me more time, but I’m not gonna wallow in the mud with that, because I know he’s just angry because I got the endorsement. Oh, nothing to do with it. He’s all hat and no cattle.
SARNECKI: (speaking quickly over him) The record says you are. Your record is what it says you are. Those are votes!
HOLT: Thank you. Well, let’s get down to Mr. Schwab.
SCHWAB: Thanks! I don’t want to be governor, I want to do governor and reflect the Kansas values we have by creating consensus. Well, I’ve done this in my office. When I came into the office, I had an outdated computer system as a result of migrating off it, and I didn’t ask for any tax money for it.
I lowered fees because we took our annual fees to bi‑annual fees and cut our fees in half, because we are doing half the work. We’re in technology debt in the state of Kansas. And yes, K–12 is a big sign. I would say don’t take federal money because that’s just going to increase costs on Kansas and send more dollars to D.C., when it should be here in our communities.
But we are in technology debt. We hand paper from building to building, it’s not online. I brought the rules‑and‑regs process online because the governor didn’t want to do it, and that’s saving the state $5 million a year.
We aren’t even good enough technology‑wise for today, and we have more technology than we’ve ever had in the history of this planet. And we’re not using it, and it’s costing us money.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. Mr. Masterson, you said in the Wichita debate we’re gonna continue to ratchet down in terms of taxes. That was in January. So, what spending would you target in order to get things back in alignment with our budget? Sixty seconds.
MASTERSON: We’ve been doing that. I have a record of making that work, making the budgets work and by the way, we passed a billion dollars in tax cuts. I don’t know if everybody caught that in your preface to the question.
Part of that deficit is you’re cutting taxes, and you have to do that in government, because what I’ve learned in my time there is you have to choke government. Because even good people want to spend on certain things. You have to keep cutting taxes, that forces the pressure down, it forces you to cut spending.
We will continue on that path when I’m governor.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. Let’s move on to the topic of abortion. As you know, Kansans voted to keep abortion legal with the 2022 vote. A woman can get an abortion at 22 weeks, with an exception for life and the health of the mother.
The number of abortions performed in the state has gone from 7,800 in 2021 to more than 19,000 last year, 75% of them from out of state, making this a regional hub. Now, I know you’re all pro‑life, and I know you’re all concerned about the election of judges, and we’re gonna talk about that in a moment. I want to confine your answer to this: (1:08:00)
Given the current status of the court, strict scrutiny, what specific policies would you pursue to limit the number of abortions in this state that would stand up to the Kansas Supreme Court?
Mr. Sarnecki, you are up first. Sixty seconds.
SARNECKI: Well, you know that Heidi and I are huge supporters in the pro‑life movement for a long, long time, both financially and in our time as well. And I just think it’s something that needs to be approached with care and compassion.
But the Supreme Court is a massive issue. And I encourage everybody, this is how we used to elect judges, Supreme Court justices in the state of Kansas, and that constitutional amendment, it’s on the ballot this fall. We need to go, and we need to vote for that constitutional amendment so that we will then know the people that are on the Supreme Court.
We have, with our current system, not to get into it, because you said we get a minute, we have six liberals, we have one conservative, and that system needs to be changed, because nobody typically even knows who those judges are or who they’re voting for.
And so that is where the whole thing starts with this issue, and we have to fix that in the fall.
HOLT: Again, I ask, what policies would you propose right now, though, that will pass muster with that court? It is gonna be in place for a while. Fifteen seconds.
SARNECKI: Well, I don’t think anything’s gonna pass muster with this court, that’s my whole point. We’ve got six liberals and one conservative, and until we change that, nothing’s gonna pass muster. But what I will say is: anything that will reduce the number of abortions, we are estimated, by 2030, that we will have more abortions than live births in the state of Kansas, so anything you can do to reduce that? I will sign.
HOLT: I appreciate that. Mr. Schwab, what policies would you try to pass or support in the legislature, sign what came across your desk, that would pass muster with this court? You have sixty seconds.
SCHWAB: Yeah. Well, on the front side, you can do a lot, like more crisis‑pregnancy centers. For some reason, this governor’s militant against that, and I don’t understand the lack of compassion for mothers that do want to keep their children, giving them access to health care so they can have a child.
And two, you keep on going after the court, because they’re just going to be what the court is, but you keep on putting things on their desk and making them make their decisions. I would reinforce our third‑trimester. reintroduce the third‑trimester abortion ban. I’d also make sure we introduce a partial‑abortion ban.
And make sure that we’re constantly going at the court, even though they’re not going to like us, we’re an equal co‑branch of government, and we keep answering these things. That way we can reduce the number of abortions in the state.
I’ve lost a child. Every time there’s an abortion, a child dies, and that hurts the person who’s the parent. I don’t care what you say, it does. It hurts. And what you have to continue to let the court know that the people of Kansas, that vote in 2022 was not about abortion; it was whether or not they liked that language.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. Mr. Masterson. what policies would you support and want to sign if they come across your desk? Sixty seconds.
MASTERSON: We will continue to be shrewd in the environment we’re in. We’ve passed a host of life‑affirming laws. My record on life is a mile long; it’s why I am the solely endorsed candidate by KFL (Kansans for Life).
And the way they will be out working on our behalf, and we will continue the things that we can do, whittling around the edges, to save as many lives as we can around parental consent, informed consent, counseling, funding pregnancy‑crisis centers, getting more information to the women that are hurting so they’ll make a different decision.
HOLT: Ms. O’Hara, what policies would you want to sign as governor that would stand up to the court in reducing the number of abortions in the state? Sixty seconds.
O’HARA: Well, I agree with, um, Mr. Sarnecki, that we are very limited because of the makeup of the court. But crisis‑pregnancy centers, that is a light in Kansas.
But in 2024, that number of abortions was 19,811 lives lost. Um, it is absolutely unconscionable that this has happened in our state. And as we look back in our history, the Hodes decision in 2019 (4) our court found in our Constitution, that was written in 1859 and brought in with us into the state in 1861, found the right of abortion in Section One of our Bill of Rights, under life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
How twisted is that?
But yes, we need to focus on crisis‑pregnancy centers, making sure that we’re giving mothers and fathers the information that there is help.
HOLT: Thank you. Let’s move on to affordability. That’s the buzzword of these midterms coming up. The average price of gasoline right now in Kansas — about $4. Diesel fuel, about five, which, of course, farmers rely heavily on. At a 25‑cent‑per‑gallon, roughly, fuel tax, would you support a fuel‑tax holiday?
Mr. Schwab, we’ll start with you. Sixty seconds.
SCHWAB: I would sign it, but I wouldn’t be a huge pusher, ’cause one holiday doesn’t give the people that much of a break. What we have to do is make government more affordable. Right now, the gallonage on gas is too high. If you’re going to cut it, you need to have a true static cut on gallonage — not just for one day where people are going to go fill up their tank.
My concern is, my son’s here with his fiancée, and they’re in a pickle. They’re both gonna be self‑employed, which is the American dream. But now that’s shortly to get into a house or an apartment, because they have to have two years of proven income.
Our affordability is not just gas. It’s making housing affordable, and that’s gonna be by reducing property taxes and giving more access to really focusing on some of our rural communities that have contracted and bringing small manufacturing jobs so that those folks can have a reason to build houses in some of these rural communities and some of these smaller communities.
HOLT: Thank you, sir, Mr. Masterson. Would you support a gas tax holiday, 60 seconds.
MASTERSON: So, I don’t know, but the gas prices. I mean, if you want permanent high gas prices, and you want high unaffordability, vote for the Democrats. They’re the party of permanent high prices in gas. They hate energy, and they’re the party of fraud, they’re the party of open borders.
What we have to do, affordability is multiple things. And I will be the most oil‑and‑gas‑friendly governor that this state has ever seen. And ethanol, as we open markets for ethanol for our producers and our farmers out there, it lowers the cost of fuel, which goes to affordability.
We have to go for property‑tax affordability. We have to go after insurance rates for affordability. We have to go after regulations for affordability. There’s a lot of cost that goes into a house, it’s not time and material.
We have to restore the underpinning of the middle class in America for our children.
HOLT: So to be clear, you would or would not support a holiday gas day?
MASTERSON: Obviously, if it was sent to me, I would sign it.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. Ms. O’Hara, are you in favor of a fuel‑tax holiday? You have 60 seconds.
O’HARA: No, I’m not in favor of that. Everyone knows that the reason for the high gas prices, and the diesel fuel, and that wouldn’t help farmers, because farmers don’t pay the road tax on their diesel fuel that they use in the fields.
So basically, this is a problem with the Iran war. And if we get that solved, gas prices are going to come down. That’s really out of our control.
But I agree with Mr. Masterson that the rules and regulations on the houses, Mr. Masterson and I are from the construction industry, and what has been required in our codes has been astronomical in the last 15 years.
We need to go back and take a look and have some common sense about what we require in our building codes. And affordability is a very multi‑level issue. And putting a Band‑Aid of a 25‑cent tax holiday is not, it’s not the answer.
HOLT: Thank you. Mr. Sarnecki fuel‑tax holiday, yes or no? Sixty seconds.
SARNECKI: You know, I appreciate the question, but the problem is, it’s just nibbling around the edges. It’s a real problem. And I might look at a very short gas holiday, but the real issue is: we have the sixth most expensive state in the country to raise a child. Think about that, Kansas. The sixth most expensive state in the country to raise a child.
We have the highest income tax of every single state in our region. We have the second‑highest corporate tax of every single state in our region. I’m pretty sure the people at home out there listening, the people here tonight, know exactly where our property taxes are. We are 50% higher than states around us, if you average them out.
We are not growing our population. We are 42nd per capita in new business startups. We are not starting enough new businesses. And to make matters worse, we are 48th in five‑year new‑business survival rate.
We are over‑taxing, over‑spending, and over‑regulating the citizens of Kansas to death, and that is the real problem with affordability. It’s not, you know, I mean, yes, gas prices are a challenge right now, no question. But we have bigger issues than just the gas prices.
HOLT: Quick point of information here. You said income taxes. Are you looking to cut income taxes as well as property taxes.
SARNECKI: Absolutely, absolutely. We can cut. If you cut spending, which we can’t do, unfortunately, ten‑and‑a‑half billion right now out of a $26‑billion budget. In the last seven years, ten‑and‑a‑half billion added to a $26‑billion budget in the last seven years.
If you audit and get out the waste and fraud, if you reduce the spending, you can absolutely cut the taxes. And we have to, or we won’t be competitive with the states around us.
HOLT: Let’s move on to what gets funded by the gas tax. It is a 10‑year transportation plan that would come up under your watch as governor. What would you prioritize in that next 10 years for transportation in our state? Mr. Masterson, we’ll start with you. Sixty seconds.
MASTERSON: Sure. I support the last 10‑year plan and the flexibility that was in it. You have to be somewhat dynamic as our economy grows, and where product moves, and where people move. And we have all the, you know, I want all this infrastructure to come to Kansas and hope we have the added resources to improve our roads.
You have to focus where the people are moving and where the product is moving. And that 10‑year plan will have to adapt to those needs.
HOLT: And to you, Ms. O’Hara — same question for you. What would your priorities be in a 10‑year plan? Sixty seconds.
O’HARA: Well, um, I think that our 69‑Highway toll project is probably the worst boondoggle that we have had in decades. The most endangered species in Johnson County is a human using the toll lane. They’re not using it, and we spent how many hundreds of millions of dollars on this unbelievable project, with three flyovers at 123rd Street.
And then I go, I drive out to Garden City, and by I‑70 and Highway 83 South. There’s not one passing lane. There’s not one turn lane. And there are semis all over the place.
We have misallocation of money in KDOT, it is breathtaking. I mean, all we have to do is look in our own backyard. We have sound walls, and it’s ridiculous what we did. And the design is unbelievably unaffordable.
HOLT: Thank you. Mr. Sarnecki. What priorities do you have in your 10-year plan on your watch?
SARNECKI: I did use that once. There was a lot of traffic and so I, you know, I went around.
O’HARA: You were one of them.
SARNECKI: Yeah, I was the one… And I will say, by the way, it was lovely. There was nobody there. I mean, it was really nice, you know? Um, not a lot of people are using it to Charlotte’s point. I’m not a big fan of government spending, for sure, and I’m not a big fan of government bloats, and believe me, we have a ton of it in the Kansas budget right now, but I do believe transportation is part of the job of government. And so, we’ll take a really good look at the plan as we get it. And we’ll go through it and make sure that it’s efficient. You know, I believe that I’m far and away best positioned of anybody up here as a business leader and a CEO for the last 30 years to do that, and we’ll evaluate it, and we’ll make sure that we come up with a good plan to present to the people of the state.
HOLT: Thank you, sir, Mr. Schwab, same question, priority in our next 10-year transportation plan. 60 seconds.
SCHWAB: Yeah, as a kid from Great Bend. And I go back to my small town, it gets smaller. Our rural communities need good roads. And right now, we need to define in statute what a shoulder is, and any highway 50 or above needs to be shouldered. Cars are going faster, they’re lighter, and you need escape route to protect our young drivers. Two, we need to finish highway 50 going east out of Liberal. That needs to be accomplished, and then you need to start focusing on a north-south, four lane corridor, going from Liberal all the way up to I- 70 so that those rural farmers, an AG can get their products to market faster down in Texas. I can lower your production costs a little bit, but if I can lower your transportation costs, people are gonna want to come to Kansas. And we’re in the center of the highway grid with I- 35, I-70, and 35. We have an opportunity to help our western Kansas communities become veins along those highways. And right now, for the past 20 years, we just haven’t done that.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. Let’s move to education now. It’s certainly on everybody’s mind — with a twist here. Kansas Department of Education says more than half of Kansas public school districts have fewer than 500 enrolled in them.
Ms. O’Hara, we’re gonna start with you. What’s your stance on consolidating school districts across the state — primarily rural — to save money? Sixty seconds.
O’HARA: Well, I am the only person up here on the stage that has a rural background. I was raised on a farm in Bourbon County, and, um, we went through consolidation, I think that was in the ’60s, and being in small towns, it was like a war zone. Because if you got to keep your school, then that was the economic center of those small towns.
Because over the last 50 years, the population has left. Instead of 400‑acre farms, they’re 4,000‑acre farms now, so the population just isn’t there.
But what we need to do is, in administration, absolutely. In my small town of Uniontown, we have a principal at the high school, a principal at the grade school, and then the head shed out west of the high school. There was a superintendent. The graduating classes were 35. There are 35 students in the graduating classes. It’s ridiculous, and that’s the same thing that happens.
We have to get rid of the excess administration cost.
HOLT: Thank you, Mr. Sarnecki. School‑district consolidation — is it time to get serious about that? Sixty seconds.
SARNECKI: First of all, be careful, Charlotte, ’cause I grew up in a town, maybe a thousand people on a good day, and I grew up walking beans, so, you know, I’m very familiar with rural America.
But we have 286 school districts in the state of Kansas. Do you know how many Florida has, with 21 million more people than we do? Sixty‑seven. Utah’s the same size as us, they have 41 school districts.
Our schools, we have a bigger issue too, because our schools are failing. This is another failure of leadership, of the career politicians in Topeka. We lead the nation in ACT test‑score declines. We lead the nation.
One of the reasons I brought Joy on, as many, because she’s super successful as a CEO in her own right, but one of the reasons I brought her on is to be an education czar, because she was on the Wichita School Board for 10 years. The only conservative. She was yelled at, she was threatened.
And we have to do transformational change for education in our state. Over 70% of our kids in fourth grade can’t read or do math at a fourth‑grade level.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. Mr. Schwab — time to get serious about consolidating school districts? Sixty seconds.
SCHWAB: Yeah, and again, I grew up in Great Bend by a horse ranch, and I also walked beans and alfalfa. But anyway, all that being said, it’s with a formula and where we’re at.
What I would propose is: by year, you’d say 2035, you say every school district will be at this threshold of population. If you’re not, then you’re going to have to merge with the school district next to you. And if you don’t, the State School Board is gonna merge you for you.
And that’s not asking, then we are closing the school. What you’re doing is you’re eliminating a lot of superintendents. They protect their turf; they don’t want that to happen.
But if we did arm school districts by population, like we do the legislature, congressional seats — Johnson County would have over 100 school districts. That makes no sense.
We have too many school districts. We can consolidate, and that would save money just on combining healthcare costs, administrative costs, and also deliverables like your paper contract, your copy contract, your computer costs, ’cause you’re spreading that out over a wider base.
HOLT: Mr. Masterson — should smaller districts be consolidated in rural areas? Sixty seconds.
MASTERSON: Oh, I don’t know the way you asked that, but, you know, President Trump endorsed me to lead on tough issues, thank you for that, and so that is what this is.
The problem with schools isn’t necessarily the size. We have lots of other problems in education. Our parents need freedom to choose; our kids need access to world‑class education. We have the ability to do that.
And we have the problem, we do, we have perverse incentives inside our education system to incentivize good teachers to become administrators at the end of their career. And it’s not a bad choice for them financially, because it’s just the way the system’s set up.
I’d love to see the highest‑paid person in the building be the best teacher, so that’s what people wanted to be. We can do other things that improve our education.
I don’t know that consolidation is the answer unless the local community wants to do that, because those schools are the lifeblood, and those schools will see the resources they need.
HOLT: Quick follow‑up. If you do consolidate and have fewer of those administrators you just talked about, don’t you have more money for classrooms? Fifteen seconds.
MASTERSON: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, taking care of administrative bloat is, as long as you’re not damaging the local community, that’s absolutely a concern. That’s even a bigger concern, like Wichita, you know, which part of my districts in Wichita, where you had an entire administrative building.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. Let’s move on to medical marijuana. The Trump administration recently reclassified it, more like a prescription medicine. Does that new classification, plus the chance to add to our revenue stream by taxing it, change your mind about your support of medical marijuana in Kansas?
Mr. Sarnecki, we’ll start with you. We’re gonna cut to 30 seconds for your answer here so we can keep moving on — 30 seconds.
SARNECKI: No, it would not. The THC content in marijuana in the 1970s was about 3 to 4%. Today, it’s around 30%, and some of the vaping products that are used, it’s like 90%. These are causing hallucinations, they’re causing schizophrenia, they’re causing anxiety.
And if you go to Oklahoma or you go to Colorado, and I’ve watched interviews with the police, I’ve watched interviews with legislators, they are very, very sorry that they did this.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. Mr. Schwab — 30 seconds.
SCHWAB: No — no, especially if it’s not FDA‑approved. First off, I’ve never met somebody who did marijuana on a regular basis and somehow got smarter. Um, it doesn’t happen.
And two, it’s really incumbent that we make sure that we have a rapid THC test first for people on our highways. They could be stoned, and we don’t know, because we’d have to do a blood draw to find out if they’re high. You can’t do a breathalyzer test.
And I don’t think, I don’t understand, and we’re not going to tax it, because we don’t tax healthcare in Kansas, and I don’t think we should be taxing healthcare in Kansas. That’s just going to drive up the cost of healthcare.
HOLT: Mr. Masterson — 30 seconds here again. Same question. Medicinal marijuana.
MASTERSON: Short answer is no, that didn’t change anything. I am supportive of the research on it, because I think the research is gonna show you just how dangerous it is and has become. If you look across this nation, there are so many states that have, you know, medical, uh, marijuana that are, for all intents and purposes, recreational, and the money that it’s bringing in is not covering the social cost that’s happening to those states. So, the short answer is no.
HOLT: Thank you. Ms. O’Hara — same question to you. Thirty seconds.
O’HARA: No. And, um, I sit across the table from this on a weekly basis when I go into the juvenile detention center for the Bible study with Ron Styles. I see these kids coming in that have terrible drug problems. And legalizing medical marijuana is extremely dangerous because it causes schizophrenia. In fact, one of my friends has a son who was hooked on marijuana, became schizophrenic, and killed himself.
HOLT: Thank you. Now — moving to Supreme Court justices. I promised I would. True to my promise, as you know, voters will decide whether to elect them in August.
Here’s my question for all of you. We’ll start with you, Mr. Schwab. It’ll be up to the legislature to implement it. So how do they do so, and what would you support? By districts, statewide, partisan, bipartisan? Thirty seconds.
SCHWAB: I would do districts — that way, you get a representation from across the state. You don’t want [inaudible] to happen.
HOLT: Mr. Masterson — how would you enable, or actually put it in place? Thirty seconds.
MASTERSON: That’ll be a robust conversation. I’m gonna support whatever gives the people of Kansas the biggest voice in that branch. That is the problem. We have a court that does not reflect the Kansas people’s values, period. And everything’s done in the back.
I bet most of this room doesn’t even know we’ve had judges that have resigned and been replaced in the last 12 months. And this is an informed crowd, and nobody knows anything about them. One’s an attorney, never been a judge before, and they just nominated another person that had failed confirmation in the Senate twice.
So, you are not seeing a court that reflects the will of the Kansas people, and that’s what I will support.
HOLT: Ms. O’Hara — 30 seconds. How would you… what would you support in terms of putting this—
O’HARA: Uh, I would support, uh, statewide for all of them, because any person that, if they have to go before the State Supreme Court, should know that they have the opportunity to participate in the election of that judge.
With western Kansas being so sparsely populated, we need to make sure that their voice is heard in every one of the elections of these seven justices. And yes, the Kansas Bar Association has had a stranglehold on who serves on our Supreme Court. We have six liberals out of seven of our judges. We have only one conservative.
HOLT: Thank you. Mr. Sarnecki — how would you implement the law? The amendment?
SARNECKI: Well, first of all, I’d like to remind everybody that since our founding as a state in the 1860s, through the last century when we changed this, for years and years, we elected our Supreme Court justices. There’s nothing to be afraid of. This is what we did for a long, long time.
And I’ve actually been looking at this. I think I would probably go with the districts, but I’m still kind of looking at it. But I would absolutely make it partisan, absolutely. People need to know if they’re electing a Republican, or a Democrat, or an independent, or whomever it may be. That letter needs to be at the end of the name when they’re voting.
HOLT: All right, we’re gonna go to tuition next. Let’s talk about tuition then. As you know, the Senate — or I should say the legislature — failed to override a bill that the governor vetoed, which, of course, bans in‑state tuition for undocumented workers.
MASTERSON: I don’t support any public benefit going to anybody here presently illegally, period.
HOLT: Ms. O’Hara? Yes or no?
O’HARA: Hmm. Yes, sir. That was SB 254 and—
HOLT: Yes or no?
O’HARA: And absolutely, it is for tuition and for all public—
HOLT: Yes or no? I need to know.
O’HARA: And I supported that SB 254 — so no money going to illegal aliens. No, no, no.
HOLT: Mr. Schwab?
SCHWAB: No in‑state tuition if you’re undocumented. No. I’ve consistently voted for that when I was in the legislature.
HOLT: All right. We have come to the end of our questions. Thank you for your honest—
Let’s go ahead and do a quick lightning round, if we could…
All right, we’re gonna go straight to closing. We’re up. You guys spent a lot of time talking tonight, so let’s go to closing. You guys were great. Each candidate will have 30 seconds. We did a draw. It was random. Mr. Schwab, you’ll go first. I want to remind you that you can catch our live‑streaming post‑show, just hit that QR code on your screen, it’ll take you right.
CLOSING STATEMENTS STARTING WITH SCOTT SCHWAB
SCHWAB: Sure. The reason why I’m running for governor is because I’ve done it. I’ve never lost statewide, and I’ve had contested races. And I would come in and tell every agency: you’re either to modernize, reduce, or both. We have to modernize state government.
I’d also focus on revitalizing our rural communities, whether it’s the downtown buildings that are slowly crumbling into the earth, or bringing back small manufacturing.
And the last thing is the appraisal process and truly addressing property‑tax reform. Richard Carlson taught me: if you want to do property‑tax reform, it takes two things, consensus and a Republican governor. I can give that to you. Modernize, revitalize, reduce.
HOLT: Mr. Masterson — 30 seconds to close.
MASTERSON: Yeah, great. It was great to be here tonight. And as incredibly honored as I am to have President Trump’s endorsement in this race, I am gonna spend every day earning the endorsement of the Kansas people.
As much as I want to make President Trump proud, I want to make you more proud in what I do as governor. And when I’m governor, I will wake up every day trying to make your life more prosperous and safer.
Please vote for me on August 4th, and God bless you — God bless the great state of Kansas.
HOLT: Ms. O’Hara — 30 seconds to close.
O’HARA: Thank you. Um… I’m running to be your governor to turn Topeka upside down. We need to be focused on serving the people instead of the big, moneyed interests with all of the tax incentives that we are giving away.
Reduce our spending, really reduce our spending, and abolish property taxes.
HOLT: Thank you. Mr. Sarnecki — 30 seconds.
SARNECKI: To everyone out there tonight, we have a choice to make, and the contrast could not be more stark. You have the ultimate insider, 20‑year career politician, and the outside business leader and job creator.
I believe that we need transformational change in the state of Kansas. And I’m respectfully asking for your vote on August 4th, so together we can make that change that’s so desperately needed.
HOLT: Thank you, sir. Thank you to all our candidates. Great job tonight. Thank you for joining us here — thanks to Johnson County Community College.
- https://www.kansascommerce.gov/program/business-incentives-and-services/sb-98-data-center-sales-tax-exemption/
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kansas-unveils-mystery-company-getting-151244058.html
- https://kslegislature.gov/b2025_26/bills/SB254/
- Hodes & Nauser, MDs, P.A. v. Schmidt (440 P.3d 461, decided April 26, 2019)