Kansas Republican Vicki Schmidt anchors 2026 campaign for governor on record of service

TOPEKA — Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt expects to be repeatedly asked two policy questions while campaigning for the Kansas Republican Party’s nomination for governor.

Both trace to her years representing a Topeka-area district in the Kansas Senate, but continue to resonate with voters because they delve into the volatile issues of taxation and abortion.

In 2012, Schmidt voted with Republican colleagues for a bill slashing state income taxes. It was signed by GOP Gov. Sam Brownback under the mistaken belief that lowering the tax burden on wealthy individuals would unleash trickle-down economic forces beneficial to all. Over the subsequent five years before repeal, revenue to the state treasury cratered. Lawmakers tried to fill the shortfall by raising the state sales tax and cutting budgets for core state services, including education and transportation.

“It is a vote I regret,” Schmidt said in an interview for the Kansas Reflector podcast. “There were a lot of Republicans, including me, that did vote for that.”

She said the GOP strategy in the Senate was to place the tax bill in the hands of a House-Senate negotiating committee so a more balanced reform plan could be drafted. Instead of revisions, the House concurred with the Senate and Brownback signed the bill into law.

“We know how that all turned out,” Schmidt said. “I sincerely regret that I trusted the process to move that along, but I will tell you that I learned a big lesson that day. You can’t always trust the process.”

Schmidt, who served 14 years in the Senate and is in her second four-year term as state insurance commissioner, will also be challenged during the campaign to explain her views on abortion rights.

The Kansas Supreme Court issued a decision in 2019 affirming Kansans had personal bodily autonomy that included the right to decide whether to continue a pregnancy. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide and made regulation of abortion a state-by-state issue.

Weeks later, Kansas voters overwhelmingly defeated a proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution designed to allow greater restraint on abortion. The amendment lacked exceptions to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.

“The (U.S.) Supreme Court did the right thing, in my opinion, of bringing that back to the states and letting the states decide,” Schmidt said. “Like most Kansans, I don’t believe in abortion on demand, like some of the far left do. … But I do believe in reasonable exceptions, and I believe that that is where most Kansans are. ”

Telling the truth

Schmidt, 69, was born and raised in Wichita. She graduated from Wichita South High School, where she met her future husband at age 15. In her youth, she made deliveries for a pharmacy and saw how those professionals helped people. She enrolled in pharmacy school at the University of Kansas and has spent more than 40 years working as a pharmacist. Her husband, Mike, became an orthopedic surgeon. They raised two sons.

In the 1990s, Republican Gov. Bill Graves appointed Schmidt to the state Board of Pharmacy. That led her to testify before a committee of the Legislature. She said a couple lawmakers fell asleep during the hearing.

“As a taxpayer, that didn’t sit very well with me. I thought I could do better,” she said.

She ran for an open seat in the Senate and ended up serving District 20 from 2005 to 2019. She was elected insurance commissioner during the 2018 campaign. She was reelected in 2022, a race she won by more than 250,000 votes among nearly 1 million cast.

In her announcement for governor, Schmidt said she was the type of person who told people the truth rather than tell folks what they wanted to hear.

“It’s important for a governor to to tell the truth,” she said. “Sometimes you have to deliver hard news to people.”

‘Run on my record’

Schmidt said she was prepared for a competitive Republican primary in 2026 given announced candidates included Secretary of State Scott Schwab, former Gov. Jeff Colyer and Senate President Ty Masterson. Others seeking the Republican nomination include podcaster Doug Billings, former Wichita school board member Joy Eakins, former Johnson County Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara and business owner Stacy Rogers.

“I’m going to run on my record, and again, I think I have a great track record to run on,” she said. “I am the candidate that … received the most votes in the last two statewide elections no matter what the office was. I think that the voters of Kansas have spoken to my electability, and I also think that they have put their trust in me.”

Before entering the Legislature, Schmidt said she identified errors in the state’s drug manufacturer rebate program that, once remedied, delivered $390 million in benefit to the state. In the state insurance commission office, she said her staff supported consumers with about $145 million in insurance claim assistance. The department also estimated that procedural reforms helped save businesses about $75 million, she said.

Schmidt, like Colyer and Schwab, had an encounter with cancer. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023. She had surgery and radiation treatments and was declared free of cancer.

“I feel great, and I do believe that I have the energy necessary to carry out a campaign,” she said.

Her illness convinced her to encourage Kansans to get mammograms in an effort to identify threats as soon as possible.

“Coming in front of Kansans and telling everybody that I had breast cancer was something I had to think about for a few seconds,” she said. “I try to talk about early detection and mammograms. It saved my life, and I know it could save others.”