TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ Democratic governor launched a new television ad on Wednesday in which she says men don’t belong in women’s sports. It’s a move seeking to blunt Republican attacks on her for vetoing two proposals to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s school and college sports.
Gov. Laura Kelly doesn’t go into details on her position in the 30-second ad, which is her first to address what Republicans see as a key education issue that hurts Kelly during a close reelection race. Her campaign later said Kelly believes decisions about transgender athletes should be made by schools, doctors, families and local officials and that the two bills she vetoed would have “created unnecessary new government mandates.”
GOP challenger Derek Schmidt, the state’s three-term attorney general, tweeted that Kelly is lying about her record, and the Republican Governors Association released a digital ad Wednesday highlighting Kelly’s vetoes. Other Republicans said Kelly is trying to hide an unpopular, liberal stance.
But Democrats said the party’s voters would understand the ad as saying that the issue doesn’t involve men playing women’s sports because trans women are women.
“Men aren’t playing girls’ sports. This is the scare-tactic framing of the far right,” said Tom Witt, executive director of Equality Kansas, the state’s leading LGBTQ-rights group. “What we’re talking about in this situation is schoolkids in competitive games with their peers at school, and our position is, trans girls are girls; trans boys are boys.”
In the ad, Kelly looks into the camera and says: “Of course men should not play girls’ sports. OK, we all agree there,” before criticizing Schmidt on school funding issues.
Her campaign launched the ad after a Republican Governors Association ad featured a collegiate swimmer criticizing Kelly. That followed five other ads in which the RGA raised the issue, including one last week in which Schmidt says Kelly is aligned with groups pushing “the transgender agenda.”
The swimmer featured in the last RGA ad, University of Kentucky graduate Riley Gaines, said in a phone interview that she was surprised by Kelly’s ad because, “It’s not aligning with anything she’s said thus far.”
Tim Shallenburger, a former state treasurer and Kansas Republican Party chair, said Kelly had to deal with the issue because it’s important to many voters. He called Kelly’s latest ad “pretty sly,” adding that she’s “trying to catch Republicans.”
Joan Wagnon, a former Topeka mayor and Kansas Democratic Party chair, questioned whether Schmidt’s stance will play well with moderate Republicans. But Wagnon also said that, had she been the candidate, she’s not sure she would have made the ad.
“If you get sucked into those kind of tit-for-tat responses, it clouds your message,” she said.
Kelly is the only Democratic governor running for re-election this year, in a state that former President Donald Trump carried in 2020.
