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This week, anti-abortion extremists in Kansas launched a desperate final attempt to strip reproductive rights from women across the state. But KS-03 GOP candidate Amanda Adkins is nowhere to be found — ignoring questions about her support for the constitutional amendment and refusing to stand against the recount efforts.
Unfortunately for Adkins, abortion rights are on the forefront of voters’ minds with less than three months to go before election day.
Read more about Adkins’ attempts to hide her anti-choice agenda from Kansans below.
Kansas City Star: ‘It’s over with.’ Abortion recount hampers Kansas Republicans’ pivot to general election
By Katie Bernard, Jonathan Shorman, and Chance Swaim
8/16/2022
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The landslide Aug. 2 vote preserving abortion rights in the state constitution was a stunning defeat for many anti-abortion Republicans. GOP candidates up and down the ballot quickly pivoted to the Nov. 8 general election.
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Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, the Republican nominee for governor, and former Cerner executive Amanda Adkins, the Republican nominee in the 3rd Congressional District, have both shown little desire to make abortion a central focus on their campaigns following the Aug. 2 amendment vote.
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But now a far-right Wichita anti-abortion activist and a Colby-based election denier are keeping abortion front and center. Mark Gietzen and Melissa Leavitt raised $120,000 to trigger hand recounts in nine counties, including the largest in the state.
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Neither Schmidt’s campaign, nor Adkins’ campaign, responded to questions about whether the GOP candidates supported the recount effort.
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“What’s ironic is the very people who I think it hurts are on the side of the people continuing to keep it in the spotlight,” said Stephanie Sharp, a former moderate Republican state legislator who now operates a political consulting firm.
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She added that she believes the recount “hurts Amanda and Derek but the right can’t let it go.”
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Schmidt and Adkins, Sharp said, already had support from voters on the right. Now they need to convince voters in the middle, many of whom voted “no.” The 3rd District is one of the most competitive congressional seats in the country and key to Republicans’ hopes of winning the U.S. House.
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“I’m grateful to the election workers and officials who are doing their jobs here, but the recount is a waste of money and time from dangerously out-of-touch politicians who are unwilling to accept defeat, and should be called out as such,” Davids said.
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While Davids’ GOP opponent Adkins remained mum on the recount, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sought to tie the Johnson County Republican to the effort. The DCCC called it an attempt by “radical election deniers and conspiracy theorists … working to overthrow the will of voters in KS-03.”
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In justifying his decision to fund the recount, Gietzen, president of the Kansas Republican Assembly, said he was seeking to uncover election fraud. There is no evidence of fraud in the August primary.
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The Kansas Republican Assembly is a hard-right group unaffiliated with the official Kansas Republican Party. Over the years, it has taken on a number of ultra-conservative and anti-government positions, including opposition to fluoridated water among other issues.
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The state’s leading anti-abortion groups and lawmakers have distanced themselves from the recount, which is expected to reaffirm the landslide defeat for the amendment.
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