The 2012 United States House of Representatives elections in Kansas were held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012, to elect the four U.S. representatives from the state of

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

. The elections coincided with the elections of other federal and state offices, including a quadrennial presidential election.

Overview

Redistricting

The 2010 United States census reflected a shift of population "primarily from rural western and northern Kansas to urban and suburban areas in the eastern part of the state." In spite of Republican political control of the governor's office, the

state senate In the United States, the state legislature is the legislative branch in each of the 50 U.S. states. A legislature generally performs state duties for a state in the same way that the United States Congress performs national duties at ...

, the state house, and the entire U.S. Congressional delegation,

redistricting Redistricting in the United States is the process of drawing electoral district boundaries. For the United States House of Representatives, and state legislatures, redistricting occurs after each ten-year census. The U.S. Constitution in Art ...

had to be decided by a federal court. To decide the case, a three-judge panel was appointed by Mary Beck Briscoe, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit: Briscoe appointed herself, along with two judges from the District Court for Kansas: Chief District Judge Kathryn Hoefer Vratil, and District Judge John Watson Lungstrum. According to the Court:

While legislators publicly demurred that they had done the best they could, the impasse resulted from a bitter ideological feud—largely over new
Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
districts. The feud primarily pitted GOP moderates against their more conservative GOP colleagues. Failing consensus, the process degenerated into blatant efforts to gerrymander various districts for ideological political advantage and to serve the political ambitions of various legislators.

Once redistricting was finalized in federal court, primary elections were held on August 7, 2012.

District 1

The redrawn 1st district will continue to encompass all or parts of 62 counties in western and central Kansas, and also taking in a sliver of the Flint Hills region. The district will now also include Pottawatomie and Riley counties, including

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

and Kansas State University, but will no longer include Barber, Comanche, Edwards, Kiowa, Pratt, and

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, England. It is located about south of Stoke-on-Trent, north of Wolverhampton, and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 71,673 at the 2021–2022 United Kingd ...

counties, and parts of Greenwood, Marshall, Nemaha, and Pawnee counties. Republican Tim Huelskamp, who had represented the 1st district since 2011, ran for re-election. He ran without challengers from any party.

Republican primary

Candidates

=Nominee

= * Tim Huelskamp, incumbent U.S. representative

Primary results

General election

Endorsements

Results

District 2

The redrawn 2nd district will continue to encompass Allen, Anderson, Atchison, Bourbon,

Brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors Orange (colour), orange and black. In the ...

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

, Coffey, Crawford, Doniphan, Franklin, Jackson, Jefferson, Labette, Leavenworth, Linn, Neosho, Osage, Shawnee, Wilson, and Woodson, and parts of Douglas,

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, and Nemaha counties. The district will now also include Montgomery County, parts of Marshall County, and the remainder of Douglas and Nemaha counties, but will no longer include Pottawatomie, Riley, and parts of Miami counties. The district lost Kansas State University to the first district, but gained the state's other major college, the University of Kansas. Republican Lynn Jenkins, who had represented the 2nd district since 2009,ran for re-election. Dennis Hawver ran as the Libertarian nominee.

Republican primary

Candidates

=Nominee

= * Lynn Jenkins, incumbent U.S. representative

Democratic primary

Candidates

=Nominee

= * Tobias Schlingensiepen, pastor and police chaplain

=Eliminated in primary

= * Scott Barnhart, farmer and Lawrence attorney * Bob Eye, attorney

Primary results

General election

Endorsements

Results

External links
Lynn Jenkins campaign websiteTobias Schlingensiepen campaign websiteJenkins, Schlingensiepen spar in 2nd District forum

The Topeka Capital-Journal ''The Topeka Capital-Journal'' is a daily newspaper in Topeka, Kansas, owned by Gannett. History The paper was formed following numerous name changes and mergers, including the merger of ''The Topeka Daily Capital'' and ''The Topeka State Jou ...

, September 30, 2012

District 3

The redrawn 3rd district will continue to encompass Johnson and Wyandotte counties. The district will now also include the northeastern part of

County, but will no longer include the eastern part of Douglas County. Republican Kevin Yoder, who had represented the 3rd district since 2011, ran for re-election. Joel Balam, a college professor, ran as the Libertarian nominee. Even though he lost, Balam's 31.5% set a new record for the highest percentage a Libertarian candidate ever received in any U.S. House election, mostly because Yoder had no Democratic opponent running against him.

Republican primary

Candidates

=Nominee

= * Kevin Yoder, incumbent U.S. representative

Primary results

General election

Endorsements

Results

District 4

The redrawn 4th district will continue to encompass Butler,

Chautauqua Chautauqua ( ) is an adult education and social movement in the United States that peaked in popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Cha ...

, Cowley, Elk, Harper, Harvey, Kingman, Sedgwick, and Sumner counties, as well as the southern part of Greenwood county. The district will now also include Barber, Comanche, Edwards, Kiowa, Pratt, and

counties, the remainder of Greenwood County, and the southwestern part of Pawnee County, but will no longer include Montgomery County. Republican

Mike Pompeo Michael Richard Pompeo (; born December 30, 1963) is an American retired politician who served in the First presidency of Donald Trump#Administration, first administration of Donald Trump as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) fr ...

, who had represented the 4th district since 2011, ran for re-election. Thomas Jefferson, a computer technician formerly known as Jack Talbert, ran as the Libertarian nominee.

Republican primary

Candidates

=Nominee

= *

, incumbent U.S. representative

Primary results

Democratic primary

Candidates

=Nominee

= * Robert Tillman, retired court officer and candidate for this seat in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

=Eliminated in primary

= * Esau Freeman, painter

Primary results

General election

Endorsements

Results

References

External links

Robyn Renee Essex v. Kris W. Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State
from the U.S. District Court for Kansas
United States House of Representatives elections in Kansas, 2012
at

Ballotpedia Ballotpedia is a nonprofit and nonpartisan online political encyclopedia that covers federal, state, and local politics, elections, and public policy in the United States. The website was founded in 2007. Ballotpedia is sponsored by the Lucy Bur ...

Kansas U.S. House
at OurCampaigns.com
Campaign contributions for U.S. Congressional races in Kansas
at OpenSecrets
Outside spending
at the Sunlight Foundation {{United States elections, 2012

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...