Voice For Liberty

Fact-Checking the Kansas Governor Candidates: Claims from the KIOGA Forum

Bob Weeks

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At an August 24, 2026 candidate forum hosted by the Kansas Independent Oil and Gas Association, Republican Ty Masterson and Democrat Cindy Holscher each cited statistics, studies, and dollar figures to back up their positions on property taxes, Medicaid expansion, the Chiefs stadium deal, and more. We checked 18 of their specific factual claims against government records, nonpartisan audits, and independent research. The pattern that emerged: most claims from both candidates were built on real data, but several were rounded up, stripped of important context, or applied a national statistic as if it were Kansas-specific, national instead of state-specific, or — in the case of Masterson’s claim that a sitting Democratic governor called Holscher “too extreme for Kansas” — a real quote presented as if it still reflected the governor’s current position, three weeks after she reversed it. Assistance from Claude AI.

Cannabis and Economic Development

“Over 70%” of Kansans support legalizing marijuana

Holscher’s claim: Support for legalizing cannabis in Kansas is “over 70%.”

Verdict: Accurate for medical marijuana; overstated for recreational use

The most recent Kansas-specific data comes from the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University, whose October 2024 “Kansas Speaks” survey found 73% of Kansans supported medical marijuana legalization, while support for recreational legalization was lower, at roughly 61% (Kansas Reflector, 2024). Holscher’s “over 70%” figure holds up if she meant medical marijuana specifically, but overstates the case if applied to cannabis legalization broadly, since recreational support falls short of that threshold.

“80% of the vehicles” at Missouri dispensaries near the state line are from Kansas

Holscher’s claim: At dispensaries along the Kansas-Missouri state line, 80% of the cars in the parking lot have Kansas plates.

Verdict: Unverifiable

No license-plate study, dispensary sales data, or state regulatory report was found that measures this specific figure. Kansas City reporting has documented that more than a million Kansans live within an hour’s drive of Missouri dispensaries, and advocates have made similar anecdotal observations about Kansas plates in dispensary lots (KCUR, 2024), but no source quantifies an 80% figure. It should be treated as an unsupported estimate rather than documented fact.

The Kansas House passed medical marijuana, and it stalled in the Senate

Holscher’s claim: The House has passed medical cannabis legislation, but it has stopped in the Senate.

Verdict: Accurate

The Kansas House passed a medical marijuana bill 79-42 in 2021, and every subsequent attempt to bring similar legislation to a Senate floor vote — in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 — has failed, with Senate President Ty Masterson among the leadership resisting floor action (KCUR, 2025). New bills introduced in the 2025-2026 session had not received a House floor vote as of the most recent reporting available. Holscher’s description of the House-passed, Senate-blocked pattern is accurate, though it compresses several years of legislative history into a single reference.

Property Taxes and Public Education Funding

Kansas is constitutionally and federally required to fund education, and hasn’t fully funded special education since 2011

Holscher’s claim: Kansas is constitutionally mandated to fund general education, federally mandated to fund special education, and the legislature “has not been funding special education since 2011 to where it’s considered adequate.”

Verdict: Accurate, with one clarification needed

Kansas’s constitutional funding obligation is well established: Article 6 of the state constitution requires the legislature to make suitable provision for public education, and the Gannon v. State litigation held the legislature out of compliance for years before the Kansas Supreme Court released jurisdiction in February 2024 (Kansas Legislative Research Department, 2024). Separately, Kansas law sets its own target for the state to reimburse 92% of school districts’ “excess costs” of special education — a target the state met in the 2010-11 school year and has fallen short of every year since, with recent state briefing materials showing Kansas covering only around 63% of those costs (Kansas Legislative Research Department, 2026). A legislative task force recommended a four-year, $82.7-million-per-year phase-in to close the gap (Kansas Reflector, 2024). One nuance worth noting: the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does create a service obligation for special education, but the specific 92% target Holscher is describing is a Kansas state law requirement, not a number set by the federal government — the federal government has separately never met its own long-standing pledge to cover 40% of special education’s excess costs nationally.

The average first-time homebuyer in Kansas is now over 40

Masterson’s claim: “Our first-time average homebuyer age is now over 40,” attributed to Kansas.

Verdict: Misleading

A figure very close to this is real, but it’s a national statistic, not a Kansas-specific one. The National Association of Realtors’ November 2025 report on home buyers and sellers found the median age of first-time homebuyers nationally had risen to 40, an all-time high (National Association of Realtors, 2025). No Kansas-specific data on first-time buyer age was found. The NAR figure is also contested: the Mortgage Bankers Association points to larger-sample data sources — including federal mortgage databases and Census Bureau records — that put the typical first-time buyer’s age closer to 32 or 33, roughly seven or eight years younger than NAR’s number, citing concerns about NAR’s low survey response rate (Scotsman Guide, n.d.). Masterson’s broader point about housing affordability is a real and well-documented national trend, but presenting the “over 40” figure as Kansas’s own statistic is not supported.

A GOP supermajority has controlled the legislature for six years without delivering property tax relief

Holscher’s claim: A supermajority has been in power for the past six years, with Masterson “in charge,” and property tax relief has not been delivered despite that.

Verdict: Accurate

Kansas Republicans have held veto-proof, two-thirds supermajorities in both legislative chambers throughout this period — 85-40 in the House and 29-11 in the Senate following the 2022 election, with the House majority expanding further after 2024 (Kansas Reflector, 2022; The Beacon, 2024). Ty Masterson has served as President of the Kansas Senate since January 2021 (KMUW, 2025). And both the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions ended without lawmakers passing substantial statewide property tax relief, drawing criticism from members of both parties (Kansas Reflector, 2026). All three components of Holscher’s claim check out.

Minimum Wage and Retaining Workers

Kansas hasn’t raised its minimum wage while “all” neighboring states have, some twice

Holscher’s claim: Kansas hasn’t raised the minimum wage in several years; “all of the other states around us have,” some of them twice.

Verdict: Misleading

Kansas’s minimum wage remains $7.25 an hour, matching the unchanged federal floor. Three of Kansas’s four bordering states have indeed raised their minimum wages in recent years: Missouri did so via ballot measures in 2018 and again in 2024, reaching $15.00 an hour as of January 1, 2026; Nebraska raised its wage through a 2022 ballot initiative on a schedule that also reached $15.00 by 2026; and Colorado’s wage, set by a 2016 ballot measure, is now indexed annually and sits at $15.16 (Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, 2026; Nebraska Examiner, 2026; GovDocs, 2026). Oklahoma, however, has not raised its minimum wage — it remains $7.25, identical to Kansas, and voters rejected a 2026 ballot measure that would have phased in a $15 wage (Ballotpedia, n.d.). Holscher’s claim is accurate for three of the four bordering states but not literally true of “all” of them.

Missouri facility workers earn “over $15 an hour” while Kansas’s minimum wage is $7.25

Holscher’s claim: Long-term workers at a comparable Missouri facility earn more than $15 an hour, compared to Kansas’s $7.25 minimum wage.

Verdict: Accurate as a wage comparison; no stadium-specific data exists

Missouri’s statewide minimum wage reached $15.00 an hour on January 1, 2026, applying broadly across the state (Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, 2026), while Kansas’s remains $7.25. No document was found quantifying wages for stadium or entertainment-district workers specifically, but the general wage comparison Holscher draws is accurate under Missouri and Kansas law as it currently stands.

The Chiefs Stadium Deal

The Hunt family won’t pay property taxes, and there’s no guarantee for local businesses

Holscher’s claim: The Hunt family’s $1 billion entertainment district investment includes nothing for local Wyandotte County businesses, and the Hunt family won’t pay property taxes.

Verdict: Needs context

The $1 billion figure for the Hunt family’s additional development commitment to hotels, restaurants, and entertainment is accurate and comes from the state’s own December 2025 announcement of the deal (Office of the Governor, 2025). As of the most recent reporting, no binding requirement guaranteeing local business participation in that development had been put in place, despite a Wyandotte County commissioner voicing a preference for one (The Beacon, 2026). The property tax claim is more complicated than stated: the stadium itself will be exempt from property tax because it will be owned by a new state public authority — standard treatment for publicly owned sports facilities generally, not a special break unique to the Hunt family — while the separately financed entertainment district’s property tax status remained unresolved in the most recent coverage available, with county officials indicating it might not receive an automatic exemption (KCUR, 2026a; KCUR, 2026b).

There are no wage guardrails for facility workers

Holscher’s claim: The bill contains no guardrails ensuring fair pay for long-term facility workers.

Verdict: Accurate

A Wyandotte County commissioner sought a prevailing-wage commitment for stadium and entertainment-district jobs before the county’s February 2026 vote approving local incentives, but that commitment was not secured, and the state law creating the new Kansas Sports Facilities Authority contains no wage or labor-standards provisions (KCUR, 2026b).

STAR bonds “only dedicate the growth,” raise no taxes, and create no liability for citizens

Masterson’s claim: STAR bonds don’t raise any tax on any Kansas citizen and create no liability on a citizen, because they only redirect the growth in tax revenue.

Verdict: Misleading

The basic mechanics are accurately described: a STAR bond district freezes a sales-tax baseline, and only revenue collected above that baseline is redirected to repay the bonds, without raising any tax rate (Kansas Department of Commerce, n.d.). But independent analysts dispute the “no liability” framing. A Prairie Village city council member’s financial model estimated the state’s total repayment obligation could reach $3 billion to $4 billion, with diverted revenue growth potentially creating annual budget shortfalls in the hundreds of millions of dollars within a few election cycles (Kansas Reflector, 2026). The state’s own 2024 nonpartisan legislative post-audit of the STAR bonds program found that, statewide, the program had already foregone $668 million in state tax revenue through 2020, with break-even timelines for individual projects sometimes stretching for decades (Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit, 2024). Lawmakers also raised the public financing cap for this specific deal from the program’s normal 50% to 70% of project costs and extended the repayment window from 20 to 30 years (Kansas Policy Institute, n.d.). “No new tax rate” is accurate; “no liability” understates real, widely reported fiscal exposure.

The deal will bring “hundreds of millions” in new income tax, including from visiting teams’ players and staff

Masterson’s claim: The deal will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in new state income tax revenue, in part because visiting NFL teams’ players and staff pay Kansas income tax on income earned while playing games in the state.

Verdict: Needs context

The “jock tax” mechanism Masterson describes is real: states with income taxes generally tax visiting professional athletes and team staff on the portion of income earned while working in that state (Tax Foundation, n.d.). But the state’s own published economic-impact estimate for the project puts combined new annual income tax collection at $61.8 million across both project sites — far short of “hundreds of millions” in any single year, though it could add up to that scale cumulatively over a decade or more (KCUR, 2026c). That same $61.8 million estimate has been publicly challenged by independent economists, who called the state’s underlying attendance projections implausible (KCUR, 2026c). No source isolates a specific dollar figure for the jock-tax component alone.

Kansas Speedway generates $30 million a year in property tax and $1 billion in taxable sales

Masterson’s claim: The 1,200 acres that became Kansas Speedway, once grassland, now generate $30 million a year in property tax revenue and a billion dollars in local taxable sales.

Verdict: Needs context

The Kansas Speedway/Village West district is genuinely the state’s largest and most successful STAR bond project, accounting for roughly two-thirds of all STAR bonds issued statewide through 2020 (Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit, 2024). The state’s own audits found the district generates more than $40 million a year in state sales tax revenue alone — the state’s share only, which is consistent with, and lends plausibility to, a total taxable sales base large enough to reach roughly $1 billion. However, the specific $30-million-a-year property tax figure could not be independently verified against any county assessor record or state report located for this fact-check, and the same state audit explicitly warns that Village West is not representative of how most other Kansas STAR bond projects have performed, since it was excluded from the auditors’ broader break-even analysis for that reason.

Medicaid Expansion and Rural Hospitals

Kansas rural hospitals at risk of closing: roughly 70% or roughly 80%?

The claims: Holscher said about 80% of Kansas hospitals are at risk of closing, with about 30% at immediate risk. Masterson said about 70% are at risk, with about 30 hospitals at immediate risk.

Verdict: Masterson’s figures track the underlying study; Holscher’s 80% figure does not

Both candidates appear to be referencing periodically updated reports from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform on rural hospitals at risk of closing. The January 2026 edition found 68 of Kansas’s roughly 100 rural hospitals — about 68% — at risk of closing, with 30 at immediate risk; a June 2026 update found 69 at risk with 28 at immediate risk, again the most of any state (KCUR, 2026d; KCUR, 2026e). Masterson’s “about 70%, about 30” is close to both editions. Holscher’s “about 80%” does not match either 2026 figure; it may reflect confusion with a related but different statistic — an earlier report found 82% of Kansas rural hospitals were losing money on patient care, a different measure than the share at risk of closing (Public Health Watch, 2023). Her “about 30%” for immediate risk is accurate.

Kansas has forfeited over $7 billion by not expanding Medicaid

Holscher’s claim: Kansas has forfeited over $7 billion in federal taxpayer funds by not expanding Medicaid.

Verdict: Needs context

Kansas remains one of only ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (healthinsurance.org, 2026). Estimates of forgone federal funds have grown over time as a recurring talking point: the Kansas Hospital Association tracked the state passing $1 billion in forgone funds by 2016, and a state senator cited a figure of more than $8 billion on the Senate floor in February 2025 (HealthLeaders Media, 2016; Kansas Reflector, 2025a). No source located for this fact-check documents a precise $7 billion figure specifically, though it falls within the plausible range of that growing estimate. The core claim — that Kansas has forfeited a substantial and growing sum by not expanding — is well supported, even though the specific number could not be traced to a primary source.

Over 75% of Kansans support Medicaid expansion

Holscher’s claim: Medicaid expansion is approved by over 75% of Kansans, “cutting across the political spectrum.”

Verdict: Needs context

The most recent rigorously sourced Kansas polling, the Docking Institute’s October 2024 “Kansas Speaks” survey, found 72% of Kansans supported expanding Medicaid, including a majority of Republicans and nearly 90% of Democrats (KMUW, 2024). That is broad, bipartisan support, consistent with Holscher’s general point, but it falls short of the specific “over 75%” figure she cited, which appears to be an older round-number talking point.

Medicaid expansion “is not saving rural hospitals” and displaces care for the disabled and elderly

Masterson’s claim: Medicaid expansion has not saved rural hospitals in states that adopted it, and instead primarily covers able-bodied adults without dependents, displacing the disabled, frail, and elderly the program was meant for.

Verdict: Misleading on hospital closures; a genuinely contested claim on displacement

The best available evidence points the other way on hospital closures. A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis found rural hospitals in Medicaid expansion states had notably higher operating margins than those in non-expansion states, both before and after the pandemic, and that closures were more common in states that had not expanded (KFF, 2023). A more recent KFF analysis found roughly two-thirds of rural hospital closures nationally between 2014 and 2024 occurred in non-expansion states (KFF, 2025). Kansas itself, a non-expansion state, has had nine rural hospital closures since 2005, tracked by the University of North Carolina’s Cecil G. Sheps Center (Sheps Center, n.d.). On the displacement argument, the picture is murkier: ACA expansion coverage is separately funded by the federal government at a higher matching rate than traditional Medicaid, meaning the funding mechanics don’t straightforwardly support a “zero-sum” displacement claim, but some conservative-aligned researchers argue that rising expansion costs can still compete for state budget capacity and administrative resources. This part of Masterson’s argument is a genuine, unresolved policy dispute rather than a claim that can be simply confirmed or debunked.

Government Spending, Jobs, and Political Claims

Kansas faces “tens of millions” in fines over SNAP errors because of “waste, fraud, and abuse”

Masterson’s claim: Kansas is “basically going to get fined tens of millions of dollars” because the state doesn’t run its SNAP program correctly.

Verdict: Needs context

There is a real federal mechanism behind this. Under a 2025 federal law, states with SNAP payment error rates above 6% must begin sharing benefit and administrative costs starting in federal fiscal year 2028. Kansas’s error rate has run well above that threshold — roughly 10% in fiscal year 2024 and reported between about 9% and 9.4% for fiscal year 2025 — putting potential Kansas cost-sharing in the range of tens of millions of dollars, broadly consistent with Masterson’s figure (Kansas Reflector, 2026a; Kansas Legislative Research Department, 2026). However, framing this as a “fine” for Kansas uniquely failing to “do our business right” omits two important facts: this cost-sharing requirement will apply to most states, since only about eight to ten states nationally fell under the 6% threshold in fiscal year 2025, and Kansas’s error rate has actually been running below the national average of 10.62% and had been declining as of the most recent reporting (USDA, 2026).

The Panasonic plant is bringing “thousands of new jobs”

Masterson’s claim: The Panasonic battery plant in Kansas is an example of major job creation, bringing thousands of new jobs.

Verdict: Misleading

Panasonic’s original 2022 announcement projected up to 4,000 jobs. As of the closest reporting to the forum, the plant employed roughly 1,800 workers — less than half the original target — and Panasonic has since pivoted part of the facility toward a different product line (AI data-center batteries) after the withdrawal of federal electric-vehicle incentives slowed its original ramp-up (KCUR, 2026f; Lawrence Journal-World, 2026). The plant is a genuine, large-scale investment that has created real jobs, but describing it as bringing “thousands of new jobs” overstates where hiring currently stands relative to the original promise.

A sitting Democratic governor called Holscher “too extreme for Kansas”

Masterson’s claim: A current Democratic governor has said the Democratic candidate — Holscher — is too extreme for Kansas.

Verdict: Needs context — the underlying quote is real, but Masterson presents a position Kelly has since reversed as if it were still current

Governor Laura Kelly did make on-the-record comments matching Masterson’s characterization during the Democratic primary. In a Kansas City Star column, Kelly is quoted saying: “Kansas is not New York. We’re not going to elect an extremist. We didn’t elect an extremist on the right wing in 2018 or 2022. We’re not going to elect an extremist on the left wing this year,” and separately, regarding Holscher, that she didn’t think “an anti-business candidate has a shot at a general election in Kansas” (Henneberger, 2026). Those remarks were widely understood — including by Holscher’s own campaign — as directed at Holscher, who responded at the time, “These aren’t extremist positions, they’re just common sense” (Kansas Reflector, 2026b). Fellow primary candidate Curt Skoog partially echoed Kelly’s concern, saying Democrats would not win in November “with a candidate from the left wing of the party.” So Masterson’s paraphrase is a fair compression of real, sourced comments, not a fabrication.

What still makes his framing misleading is timing. Holscher won the Democratic primary on August 4, 2026, and the very next day Kelly reversed course and formally endorsed her, instead describing Masterson as pushing “an extreme agenda” that would “sow division and chaos” (WIBW, 2026). Speaking at the August 24 forum — three weeks after that reversal — Masterson framed Kelly’s position in the present tense (“you have a current Democrat governor saying…”) without acknowledging that the sitting governor had by then endorsed Holscher and redirected the “extreme” label at him. The quote he’s drawing on is real; presenting it as Kelly’s standing, current assessment is not.

Holscher co-founded the group that “put together the bill” ending the Brownback tax cuts

Holscher’s claim: She was a co-founder of the Women’s Bipartisan Caucus, which put together the bill that ended the “Brownback experiment.”

Verdict: Needs context

One news profile of Holscher’s campaign describes her as a founder of a Women’s Bipartisan Caucus that “formulated a plan” related to the 2017 rollback of Governor Sam Brownback’s tax cuts (Kansas Reflector, 2025b). That is consistent with her claim, but it traces to a single source built substantially around her own campaign narrative, and no independent, contemporaneous 2017 coverage of the actual bill (SB 30) credits this specific caucus as its author. Mainstream 2017 reporting instead describes the rollback as the product of a broader bipartisan coalition of legislators, including moderate Republicans elected after a 2016 backlash against Brownback-aligned conservatives, passed over Brownback’s veto (The Hill, 2017). This doesn’t mean Holscher’s account is false — an informal caucus’s role in shaping strategy wouldn’t necessarily show up in floor-vote coverage — but it is not independently corroborated beyond her own campaign’s telling.

Sources

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  38. Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. (n.d.). Rural hospital closures. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://www.shepscenter.unc.edu/programs-projects/rural-health/rural-hospital-closures/
  39. U.S. Department of Agriculture. (2026, June 24). USDA announces FY 2025 state payment error rates in SNAP [Press release]. https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2026/06/24/usda-announces-fy-2025-state-payment-error-rates-snap
  40. Kansas Reflector. (2026a, August 12). Kansas lowers food assistance error rate but still may face federal penalties. https://kansasreflector.com/2026/08/12/kansas-lowers-food-assistance-error-rate-but-still-faces-federal-penalties/
  41. KCUR. (2026f, June 17). Panasonic’s De Soto plant will shift to start making AI data center batteries. https://www.kcur.org/housing-development-section/2026-06-17/panasonics-de-soto-plant-ai-data-center-batteries
  42. Lawrence Journal-World. (2026, February 2). Panasonic plant up to about 1,400 employees; officials hope to hire ‘several hundred’ more in coming months. https://www2.ljworld.com/news/general-news/2026/feb/02/panasonic-plant-up-to-about-1400-employees-officials-hope-to-hire-several-hundred-more-in-coming-months/
  43. Kansas Reflector. (2026b, July 10). Gov. Laura Kelly affirms endorsement in Kansas governor’s race despite rivals’ protest. https://kansasreflector.com/2026/07/10/gov-laura-kelly-affirms-endorsement-in-kansas-governors-race-despite-rivals-protest/
  44. Henneberger, M. (2026, July). Let’s get Trumpy, why don’t we: Gov. Laura Kelly calls Holscher an ‘extremist’. Kansas City Stack [Substack repost of a Kansas City Star column]. https://kansascitystack.substack.com/p/lets-get-trumpy-why-dont-we-gov-laura
  45. WIBW. (2026, August 5). Gov. Kelly endorses Cindy Holscher for governor. https://www.wibw.com/2026/08/05/gov-kelly-endorses-cindy-holscher-governor/
  46. Kansas Reflector. (2025b, October 6). Kansas senator leans into bipartisan allure in campaign for Kansas governor. https://kansasreflector.com/2025/10/06/kansas-senator-leans-into-bipartisan-allure-in-campaign-for-kansas-governor/
  47. The Hill. (2017, June). Kansas legislature rolls back Brownback’s tax cuts. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/336684-kansas-legislature-rolls-back-brownbacks-tax-cuts/

Fact-checked against the transcript of the Kansas Independent Oil and Gas Association’s August 24, 2026 gubernatorial candidate forum in Wichita, Kansas, moderated by Michael Schwanke of KWCH.

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