2 independent candidates for Kansas House try to capitalize on ‘hunger’ for alternatives

TOPEKA — The November election will determine whether two independent candidates’ refusal to stand with Democrats or Republicans earns them a Kansas House seat.

Jack Geiger, an organic farmer and self-described former “conservative Democrat” from Brown County, is running against incumbent Republican Rep. Sean Willcott to represent a north-central district that includes Brown and Nemaha counties, and portions of Jackson and Atchison counties.

Lex Goff, a Wellington resident who graduated high school in May, is running against four-term incumbent Republican Rep. Bill Rhiley to represent the district south of Wichita in Sumner County and part of Cowley County.

There is no Democrat in either race.

Both Geiger and Goff found their way to an independent ticket after local issues pulled at them to get more involved, and they didn’t like what they saw from the two-party system.

Geiger said he is receiving support from people from multiple generations, Democrats and Republicans alike. 

“This is not a hungry-for-power game,” he said. “I view myself as a bridge for the political realignment that is coming, and it’s inevitable. I can see it, and I think the guys and the gals that I fight for, I think they see it and they hunger for it.”

Goff’s interest in politics increased after he jumped into a fight to pass a bond issue at his high school during his senior year. It was surrounded by “negative stigma” with the idea of a mill levy increase, he said. 

“I did my best as a student to have some smaller rallies, put out the right information, and it felt good doing something like that, even though it was so small,” he said. 

After graduation, he toyed with joining the military to help pay for college, where he planned to major in political science and finance, Goff said. His desire to help people and accomplish goals instead shifted him toward running against Rhiley, he said. 

Goff said he wanted to do so in a way that “isn’t partisan.”

Geiger, who follows politics like some people follow football, said he was led toward the idea after a strong local candidate was obliterated in a race when PAC money got involved a couple of years ago. 

“The parties, the powers that be, if you will, put their finger on the scale,” he said. 

Then, Flock Safety cameras, which automatically read license plates, went up in the area and Geiger began digging into a proposed data center. He also started following Willcott and what the Legislature was doing. 

“Every time that I asked a question or did a little bit of research, I became more unsettled, and I became a little more disenfranchised with what was going on,” he said. 

Everyone keeps asking him why he is running as an independent, Geiger said, except for his local neighbors who know his politics well after an eight-year term as a township trustee.

“My local neighbors knew that I was a Democrat. They also know that I’m not extreme, that I am conservative,” Geiger said.

But he saw his way forward in Kansas as an independent, especially after looking closely at the Legislature’s record in 2026. 

“There comes a point in time where you have to speak truth to power, call a spade a spade,” he said. “I did follow the last legislative session, and I honestly cannot give them credit for any single piece of legislation. That legislative session was an insult to the people, and that is why when I went out to get my petition signed, we did not go by party affiliation.”

Independent candidates in Kansas must get signatures of 4% of the registered voters from the district. 

Goff and Geiger said going door to door was a good way to understand what people in their districts want. 

Geiger laughed as he recalled that because he is so well-known in the community, he was getting yeses when he asked Republicans or Democrats to sign the petition, with just two exceptions. One of those was when he and his wife targeted the independents in the area and got their first “no,” he said. 

“The reality is that we’re perceived to be Republican, if you will, but yet there is a lot of unrest out here,” Geiger said of rural Kansas. 

Willcott, Geiger’s opponent, is serving his first term after becoming interested in politics when he worked to change a state law that affected his business, a brewing company. He said he isn’t focusing on Geiger but on issues that concern people in his district. 

“We agree that government’s too big. We agree that there’s too much regulation for small businesses,” Willcott said. “The cost of living’s high, property taxes are climbing. Those are kind of the discussions that I have and I engage with, and I think it represents the district pretty closely, east to west, north to south.”

Goff’s top three issues are education, healthcare, and agriculture, he said. Farmers are struggling, he said, adding that he summarizes the need for action by saying, “no more next year.”

Although he understands agricultural issues are primarily affected by federal actions, Goff said he believes the state can be more proactive, such as addressing property tax concerns. 

Other concerning issues are the $200 million special education funding gap and Kansas hospitals at risk of closing, he said.

Rhiley, Goff’s opponent, didn’t return an email or phone call from Kansas Reflector.

Geiger said he supports term limits; rural economic development with a focus on vocational education, hospitals, schools and infrastructure; and fair and transparent taxation. He said he wants to “end state budgeting shenanigans.”

He doesn’t like the pay raise legislators gave themselves, the way Kansans are being hit by inflation, diesel prices and difficulties buying a home. 

“We raise cattle, and a bunch of my stories are not only the farm ethic, but they’re the cattle ethic in Kansas,” he said. “But the brand that I ride for is the state of Kansas. If you’re going to try and bend me to a party platform or this or that, well, it just ain’t going to happen.”

This story was updated to correct the number of signatures candidates must collect on a petition.