Ark Valley News - Primary voting begins this week

Primary voting begins this week
By Matt Heilman
Last Updated: July 24, 2014

The 2014 election season is heating up by the day and area voters can begin weighing in starting this week. Advanced voting for the Aug. 5 primary election began July 23 at the election office in downtown Wichita.

Advanced voting at the election office will continue through Aug. 4. Satellite voting centers, including ones at Bel Aire City Hall and First United Methodist Church in Valley Center, will be open from noon to 7 p.m. July 31 and Aug. 1 and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 2. On election day, Aug. 5, the polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

After candidates are weeded out in the primary and the representatives from each party emerge in local, state and national races, three months of intense campaigning will come to a head at the Nov. 4 general election.

Starting locally, the race for District 4 of the Sedgwick County Commission has two Republican candidates who will square off in the primary to face a Democratic challenger in November.

In the primary, incumbent Richard Ranzau will face challenger Carolyn McGinn, who has served the area in Topeka as a state senator since 2004. McGinn previously served as a county commissioner from 1998 to 2004.

Ranzau has served on the commission since 2010. Either Ranzau or McGinn will face Democrat Melody McCray-Miller in November. McRay-Miller also served District 4 on the county commission from 1995 to 1998. McCray-Miller does not have a challenger in the Aug. 5 primary.

At the state level, there isn't likely going to be much of a change in local representation, at least not through the Aug. 5 primary. Valley Center Republican Steve Huebert is running unopposed to represent the 90th District in the Kansas House.

Barring voters' preference for a write-in candidate or an unaffiliated candidate, Huebert will win his eighth two-year term to represent his district that includes most of Valley Center, all of Andale, Bentley and Colwich and parts of Park City, Wichita and Sedgwick.

Huebert has represented District 90 since 2001.

In the race for Kansas House District 85, Republican incumbent Steve Brunk doesn't have a challenger in the Aug. 5 primary, but will face Democrat Patrick Thorne in the November general election. Brunk has served the district that includes all of Benton and parts of Bel Aire, Kechi and Wichita since 2003.

In House District 91, which includes parts of Kechi, Maize, Park City, Valley Center and Wichita, incumbent Gene Suellentrop is being challenged by fellow Republican Eric Henderson in the Aug. 5 primary.

No Democrat has filed to challenge for the seat in November. Suellentrop has represented House District 91 since 2009.

On the national stage, the Aug. 5 primary is headlined by the 4th Congressional District race between Republicans Mike Pompeo and challenger Todd Tiahrt. Pompeo, the incumbent, has served the Wichita area in Washington D.C. since 2010. Tiahrt filled Pompeo's seat from 1995 to 2011.

The seat was vacated when Tiahrt ran for U.S. Senate in 2010. He did not win the Senate seat and has spent the last few years working as a businessman in the private sector.

Either Pompeo or Tiarht will face Democrat Perry Schuckman in November.