Kansans speak through new survey. What do they have to say?
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What does the Kansas Speaks survey reveal about overall voter awareness?
This year's Kansas Speaks opinion survey from the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University gives sometimes startling insight into the opinions of residents across the Sunflower State. Welcome to the Kansas Reflector podcast. I'm opinion editor Clay Weierstone. And I'm joined today by senior reporters Tim Carpenter and Morgan Shulson to discuss the findings. Hello to you both.
Hi, Clay.
Really good to be here. Happy to do this. So, Tim, let's start off by taking a... a bit of a political look at the survey. They were looking at how many Kansans had heard of various gubernatorial candidates.
Right. So the survey this year, as it does in years past, looks at name recognition of a handful of candidates who've thrown their hat in the ring. So this looked at 11 candidates. And no surprise, I think the people with the highest name recognition were folks who had run and been on statewide ballots. Former Governor Jeff Collier is the most recognizable candidate for governor in 2026, with 35 percent of people saying they know who he is. Second is Secretary of State Scott Schwab, also a Republican, at 29 percent. You go beyond that and all the people in this survey are under 25%. That means that essentially three-fourths of the electorate doesn't have any idea who these people are. So the leadership of the also-rans would be Senate President Ty Masterson at 25%, Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt at 24%, former Johnson County Commissioner Charlotte O'Hara at 22%,
Then you step down to another tier and you have people under 20%. That's the long road to the governorship. I should note that the two main Democrats in the race, Senator Ethan Corson and Senator Cindy Holsher of Johnson County, are both under 17%. So it just really says that all of these candidates have a long road ahead in terms of getting voters to identify with them and then convincing them to vote for them.
Well, and it also suggests just how open the governor's race really is, how much work everyone still has to do to kind of define themselves and, you know, and make their case.
Now we have a whole year until the general election. And so you're right. And, uh, I'm sure plenty of bucks will be spent on spinning a yarn about how good they'll be in terms of following up Governor Laura Kelly.
So, Morgan, turning to you and talking about kind of a perennial issue on, again, for a survey like this, abortion rights in Kansas. What do the survey results tell us about that?
Clay, this was part of a section where they took a look at a lot of different political opinions on various subjects. And it came out about how you would expect after the statewide referendum a few years ago.
How well do Kansans recognize the 2026 gubernatorial candidates?
72, just over 72 percent of Kansans or respondents said that they strongly agreed or agreed that women were in a better position than politicians to make choices about whether to get an abortion or not. Well, 13% disagreed or strongly agreed. So again, we saw that basic summary of what Kansans think when we had the political referendum and the concept of taking it out of our constitution as a protected option. They did have some interesting questions on abortion that I found that we have about 30% of folks agree with some of the things that states like Texas have done, where if for some reason we would be able to make all abortion illegal in the state, did they agree or disagree that it would be illegal for Kansas women to travel outside the state to get abortions?
And 30% of the folks agreed that that should be the case. Whereas we're still at like 56 percent who 50.6 percent, just over 50 percent, who think that they should not make it illegal for women to travel outside the state. So in this category, things fell along the lines of about what we'd expect from past votes.
And, you know, and again, people are quite set in ways that don't necessarily reflect what the state legislature, for instance, has been pursuing or trying to pass in recent years.
And that is something that they took a look at in this survey. They asked whether they thought state government should continue to look at, do they strongly oppose or somewhat oppose new laws that restrict access to abortion passed by the Kansas legislature?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What does the Kansas Speaks survey reveal about overall voter awareness?
0:00–3:03
2
How well do Kansans recognize the 2026 gubernatorial candidates?
3:03–7:05
3
What are Kansans’ attitudes toward abortion rights after the recent referendum?
7:05–10:57
4
How do Kansas residents rate the state’s current economic conditions?
10:57–14:51
5
What level of support exists for legalizing medical and recreational marijuana?
14:51–19:07
6
How do Kansans view immigration and its impact on the local economy?
19:07–22:54
7
What concerns do Kansans have about water availability and policy?
22:54–25:43
8
How important is affordable, high‑quality child care to Kansas families?
25:43–27:07
Speakers
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