We featured 13 candidates of color running for office in our June 7 article “Kansas Candidates of Color Vying Beyond Traditional Districts.” In our goal of highlighting the candidates in that group that had a primary, here are two more of those candidates: Brooklynne Mosley, ShaMecha King Simms and Tonda Hill.
Mosley is in one of those races where the primary will decide it all. In the primary, she’ll face off against two other Democrats in the race for the Kansas House District 46 seat in Lawrence. In heavily Democratic Lawrence, there is not a Republican candidate.
Mosley, a 10-year Air Force veteran who has worked as an organizer and campaign operative from local politics to the national level, finally decided to make her own run for office when long-time incumbent Dennis “Boo” Highberger decided not to seek reelection. She’s running against Brittany Kathleen Hall, who serves as president of the Haskell Indian Nation University Board of Regents and works as a technical assistance research coordinator at the University of Kansas. Also in the race is Logan Ginavan, a lifelong Lawrence resident and recent KU graduate.
King Simms is running for Senate District 19, a newly drawn seat that stretches from Topeka to Lawrence. This is a district that’s seen as one that Democrats can win, but there are three Democrats in the race and two Republicans.
King Simms is an educator who has served as president of her neighborhood association and as chair of the Topeka Citizen Advisory Council. Her Democratic opposition includes Vic Miller, who gave up his position as Kansas House Minority Leader to run for the Senate. The third candidate is Patrick Schmidt, who made an unsuccessful bid for Congressional District 2 in 2022.
Hill, a Lawrence resident who is currently serving as an assistant district attorney in Wyandotte County, is running as a Democrat for Douglas County district attorney. Two other Democrats are running for Douglas County prosecutor, Dakota Loomis and Suzanne Valdez. Loomis served as Baldwin City municipal judge for two years before recently becoming Baldwin city attorney. Valdez, who has held the DA position since 2021, underwent a disciplinary hearing late last year, resulting in a one-year censure. The winner of the primary will face off against Republican candidate Mike Warner. Also pictured and featured in our June 7 article were Stacey Knoell and Jessica “JP” Porter. Neither of them have a primary. Knoell is running for the Kansas Senate District 23 seat in Southern Johnson County. Porter is running for the District 50 seat in the Kansas House. The district covers the northern edge of Topeka and a few rural communities.
