‘Bullies’: Biden effigy showcases a Johnson County Republican Party shaped by Trump era

Four times over the past month, the Kansas Republican Party’s weekly newsletter promoted the “Grand Ol’ Party” – a fundraiser hosted by Johnson County Republicans and headlined by the conservative rocker Ted Nugent.

Nugent, 75, has a 1981 song, “Jailbait,” which includes the line, “Well I don’t care if you’re just 13 / You look too good to be true.” As a 30 year old, he was involved with a 17-year-old girl. He once remarked that “all men are not created equal” when discussing South African apartheid.

When the fundraiser took place Friday night, the headline turned out to be a mannequin of President Joe Biden that attendees could punch, kick and otherwise beat up on.

The Biden effigy produced a wave of anger among some Republicans over the weekend, as former Kansas Republican Party chairman Mike Kuckelman condemned the display in a widely-shared Facebook post. Kuckelman called for the resignation of the current chairman, Mike Brown, and Johnson County Republican Party chairwoman Maria Holiday, declaring that as Republicans “we are better than this.”

But the Biden effigy – and the event itself – underscores how the Johnson County Republican Party has been reshaped over the past eight years under former President Donald Trump and his brand of insult politicking. An aggressive, coarser style of politics has taken hold, even as Johnson County voters increasingly vote Democratic.

Reactions to the episode also illuminated growing divisions among Kansas Republicans, largely between two camps of conservatives led by Brown and Kuckelman that have been engaged in an ongoing fight over the future of the party for over a year.

As Republicans lose ground in Kansas’ most populous county, their slipping electoral power in the area hasn’t jolted the party locally back toward the center. Johnson County, once a GOP stronghold, has instead proven instrumental in sending Democrat Sharice Davids to Congress and keeping Republicans out of the governor’s mansion.

Illustrating the potential political danger in the Biden effigy, Prasanth Reddy, a physician who is the frontrunner in the Republican race for Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District, quickly condemned the display over the weekend. “Ridiculous, thoughtless actions like this one distract from those trying to deliver solutions,” Reddy posted on social media.

Current and former Johnson County Republicans, alarmed by the party’s direction, warn the brash approach and attitude of Trump era – embodied by the effigy episode and the lack of scandal within the party over Nugent’s presence – risks continuing to alienate the moderate Republican, independent and crossover Democratic voters needed to again build a winning coalition.

The Johnson County Republican Party is in a “doom spiral,” said Brandon Kenig, a former Shawnee city councilmember. Kenig’s own political trajectory illustrates the challenge confronting Republicans: Kenig chaired the Johnson County Young Republicans as late as 2015 but is now a Democrat.

“Now it’s about owning your opponent, about being able to say the most outrageous, outlandish things that put your opponent on the defense,” Kenig said.

The Republicans’ prospects in Johnson County have shifted rapidly. Trump won Johnson County in 2016 but then lost it in 2020.

By the 2022 governor’s race won by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, Republican nominee Derek Schmidt, who had campaigned as a somewhat establishment Republican, won fewer votes than Republican Kris Kobach in the 2018 race. Kobach, at the time the state secretary of state, already had a well-developed reputation as a hardliner on immigration and election issues.

Jan Kessinger, a moderate Republican former state lawmaker who now sits on the Blue Valley school board, said he urged the county party several years ago to broaden its appeal but that his pleading went nowhere. Kessinger acknowledged he has thought about leaving the party but that he holds out hope he can influence it by remaining a member.

“To me, it’s something that would happen at a junior high school party,” Kessinger said of the effigy. “I would say we’re better than that but it doesn’t appear we’re better than that.”

At the party’s recent peak, more than 50% of Johnson County’s registered voters were Republicans in 2005, according to Johnson County Election Office data that dates back to 1988.

But that share of voters steadily dropped over the years. The decline in support accelerated after the 2016 election and the party now holds its smallest share of voters in the last 36 years – 40.9% of voters. Since the 2016 election, Democrats have seen their share of voters increase by six percent to 32% of registered voters.

Internal GOP division

The behavior on display at the Johnson County Republican Party fundraiser has its roots in Trump, Kessinger argued, saying the former president has made “that sort of behavior acceptable and desired.”

“Teddy Roosevelt talked about a bully pulpit, but they forget the pulpit part and they have just become bullies,” Kessinger said.

In 2020 Trump won 56% of the vote in Kansas. Trump, who is expected to formally secure the delegates needed to win the GOP nomination for president in the coming days, is in no danger of losing the state absent political cataclysm.

But the former president’s long list of past and ongoing scandal – including a likely criminal trial over hush money payments this spring and a civil jury verdict last year finding Trump liable of sexual assault – could prove a drag on other Republican candidates in Johnson County.

In addition to seeking to reelect Davids, Kansas Democrats are trying to end the Republican supermajorities in the Kansas Legislature. The path to electing more Democratic state lawmakers largely runs through Johnson County.

“I wish I could say I’m surprised to hear about the Biden effigy debacle, but I’m not,” Kansas House Minority Leader Vic Miller, a Topeka Democrat, said in a statement. “This is the natural consequence of the unforgiving, violent rhetoric Trump brings to the table.”

Kuckelman, a Johnson County lawyer, insisted that Brown and his allies are at the root of the problems confronting the Johnson County Republican Party – not Trump. Most Republicans, he said, remain the same as they have for decades in adhering to Republican principles.

He called the Kansas Republican Party’s decision in early 2023 to elect Brown, a former Johnson County commissioner who promoted election conspiracies, as chair a mistake and said he is actively recruiting new party leadership at the state and county level. He said he would advise candidates to stay clear of Brown and Holiday.

“What can you gain from being at an event headlining Ted Nugent?” Kuckelman said. “And in the end, we all saw it, you could really hurt yourself being present at that event.”

The Kansas Republican Party released an unsigned statement Monday that criticized Kuckelman without naming him for drawing attention to the episode. The statement said the Johnson County Republican Party hosted the fundraiser and that after the event it was brought to the state party’s attention that an “outside exhibitor in the karate/self-defense space rented a booth at the event.”

“A disgruntled former member of the state party, who did not attend the event, saw an opportunity to capitalize on the poor judgment of the outside exhibitor. No one from KSGOP leadership or staff attended the event or had input on exhibitors,” the statement said.

“It’s unfortunate the events took place, and even more so the former state party member created a false narrative in order to spew rhetoric and capitalize on continued attempts to divide the party.”

The internal fighting and “false narratives” within the party risk 2024 election outcomes, the statement said, “and they must end.”

‘They don’t have control’

Johnson County Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara said she was at Friday’s fundraiser but didn’t see the Biden mannequin. She said the local Republican Party has adopted a tougher stance on economic issues like tax breaks for developers, arguing that has created a divide with more moderate Republicans.

Still, she said rising property taxes and tax incentive deals are winning issues that candidates should be talking about.

“And the moderate Republicans flapping their jaws, they’re just angry because they don’t have control of the party. They’re going to do anything to destroy any leadership, and it’s sad,” O’Hara said.

The event was intended to raise money for state legislative candidates in Johnson County, said Rep. Adam Thomas, an Olathe Republican who is running for the Kansas Senate. Thomas was at the event but said he didn’t see the effigy which he described as “very concerning.”

Republicans across the county have tough races coming up, Thomas said. And while he wasn’t sure a single event like the effigy would cause candidates to lose, he said the party needs to unify in order to campaign to independent and moderate Democratic voters.

“We need to focus on how we get our messaging out there and how we unify the party and how we attract those independent voters and I think the party is going to do work to do just that,” Thomas said.

“Because there’s too much at stake here. We can’t lose seats in Johnson County.”

The Star’s Sarah Ritter contributed to this report.