TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Former Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer signaled Friday that he’ll make a comeback bid in 2022 by taking a step required to raise money for the Kansas governor’s race and bringing a granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower to his team.
Colyer stopped short of formally announcing his candidacy but described philanthropist Mary Eisenhower as joining “our campaign” to be its treasurer. State law says a candidate must appoint a treasurer to accept contributions, the announcement came on “Jeff Colyer Governor” letterhead and it quoted Colyer as saying the state needs “an authentic, effective conservative.”
But the path to the GOP nomination and the right to challenge Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is far from open. Many Republicans expect three-term state Attorney General Derek Schmidt also to run, and Colyer’s last race was his narrow loss as governor in the August 2018 primary to conservative firebrand and then-Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who lost the general election to Kelly.
“Kansas made a mistake in 2018, and it’s time to fix that mistake,” Mary Eisenhower said in a statement.
Colyer was governor for a little less than a year after serving seven years as GOP Gov. Sam Brownback’s lieutenant governor. He rose to the higher office in January 2018, when Brownback resigned to become U.S. ambassador for international religious freedom under President Donald Trump.
Trump tweeted his endorsement of Kobach the day before the 2018 primary. Kobach is known nationally advocating tough immigration laws and alienated moderate GOP and independent voters. Some Republicans argued later that Colyer would have fared better against Kelly.
She ran largely against Brownback’s legacy. His nationally notorious 2012-13 experiment in slashing income taxes was followed by persistent budget shortfalls until state lawmakers repealed most of the tax cuts in 2017.
Colyer, a reconstructive plastic surgeon and former state legislator from Overland Park, was the architect of much of Brownback’s health policy. They opposed expanding the state’s Medicaid health coverage for the needy, which Kelly has advocated without success in the Legislature.
Mary Eisenhower is a former CEO of People to People International, a Kansas City-based organization founded by her grandfather to provide international travel for students with the goal of promoting understanding.