Coming up on KTWU is a 2026 IGI Election Special where I talk with the two candidates for Kansas Governor, Republican Ty Masterson and Democrat Cindy Holscher.

Stay with us.

This program on KTWU is brought to you by the Carol Jory Foundation.

Hello, and welcome to a 2026 IGI election Special.

I'm your host, Bob Beatty.

Well, it's another big election year for Kansas, which always seems to be the case, doesn't it?

And we'll be with you all the way as we talk to the candidates, help them debate and dive into the important issues that face the state all the way up to Election Day on November 3rd.

For this program, I'm talking to the two candidates who emerged victorious out of tough party primaries, both hoping to succeed two term Governor Laura Kelly from the Republican Party.

State Senator Tim Masterson.

And from the Democratic Party, state Senator Cindy Holscher.

So let's meet the two candidates.

Well, thank you so much for joining me today.

Senator Masterson.

It's great to have you here.

I'm going to start probably in a different way than the Chamber of Commerce interview started.

So think about this.

The year is 1981.

You're 12 years old.

The top songs are Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield and Celebration by Kool and the gang, O Holland Oates, kiss on My List and make them the TV shows, or T.J.

hooker, Classic Mash and Dukes of Hazzard.

You're in middle school and the teacher says, okay, Ty, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Not what you think you might be.

What do you want to be?

And what did you write?

I'm not sure what that answer would be.

I'm trying to think back.

So we were 12 years old?

Yeah.

I'm 12, 12 years old.

You know, I grew up on the backside of a of a farm.

We were on the farm, but on the back side, because that was my family history.

And so my, my parents, we didn't we didn't have TV.

We didn't, I did.

So we weren't watching no television shows.

No do.

I mean, it was dad had a small TV watching news on, but we were we were outside most of the time, you know, growing up and play, working on the, we had a lot of gardens and so we, we did gardens and played outside.

I think back then I would have probably wanted to be a sports star of some sort.

Right?

I mean, at 12 years old, I was a Dallas Cowboy fan.

They were America's team, right?

Going through the 70s.

And, so that's probably where I probably wanted to be an NFL star.

Yeah.

For me, it was basketball, because who knows, maybe I would have grown up to 6 or 7.

Yeah, I learned quickly I had didn't have the size or the speed to do that.

So you weren't thinking there.

You know, I want to be governor when I am.

That was never wrong.

That probably did not hit.

That wasn't on the list till just a few years ago.

Okay, so now time travel.

Why do you want to be governor now?

He was through the primary in the general election.

Tell the folks why.

I mean you the 30,000ft reason why is because, another thing just about my life.

My wife and I, we have six children.

They're all adults now.

We actually have eight grandchildren on the ground, nine tons on the way.

And it is all six of our children are choosing to raise their families right here with us in Kansas.

And so I'm just I'm just highly conscious of the fact that, you know, as my clock times out, that I've got a little clock starting that I deeply care about, and I just want to make sure Kansas is a great place to live, work and raise a family.

I mean, I have it's not about me.

And so that's your kids, your grandkids too.

I love this state, and I just need to make it the right place for my kids to grow up.

And we'll get into some policy, of course.

But what kind of governor do you want to be?

I mean, you know, we've all seen numerous governors in Kansas and in other states.

Is there a type of person or a governor that or style that, you see yourself being?

We'll find out if you win, what you be, but that maybe is aside from policy.

Yeah.

No, it's I think I when the answer to that is I want I want to be a transformational governor.

I want something that makes a difference.

I just I know some just want a title, but I want to be someone that makes a difference.

I know, you know what?

I don't know why I would be here doing this if it wasn't to be that transformational, person.

Because, you know, it's politics has become pretty brutal, right?

And everybody's a critic and you say nasty things about you no matter what you do.

So I want to make I want to I want to bring change.

I want to stop Kansas from exporting our children.

You know, I mentioned that why we have our kids need to in order for us to keep our kids.

They need jobs and opportunity.

And so we need growth.

And I'm going to go after a lot of our big, system issues.

And I just want to make a real difference.

Have you always had a tough skin?

And I say, do you have a tough skin because you're in this business and like, you know, I write a column for a paper or something, and I turn off all the comments because maybe I do have a thin skin.

And if you always had a tough skin or saying, well, if I'm gonna run for governor, I guess I'm going to have to have one.

No, I'd say no.

I've not always had a tough skin.

I was a kid that, you know, I love people, and, I think I cared too much about what they thought of me in my early years.

I think if we're getting personal about things, I went through a, you know, I was a home builder for most of my career and built clear into the.

And through the 2008 crash and, you know, God taught me a lot of powerful lessons about what I control and what I don't.

And and at that time, you know, when you have those types of struggles, you know, I was one of the statistics in that time.

I think that's the time frame in which I, I call I feel like God stripped me of what I call my fear of man, of what other people think of me.

And it gave me that tough skin and I developed in me.

I just kind of answer to one, you know, I answer to him and I answer to my wife.

And so I want people to like me.

But to a large degree, I don't care right now because I'm only answering to one.

And so but I don't bother to read the comments because it's a lot of, you know, nasty stuff that you know, it's people that are just angry and they don't even know what they're talking about on, you know, 99% of the time.

So I don't want to make it relevant in my life.

How do you thread that line?

We know the voter registration is 45, 25, 29 with with 45 Republican, 25 Democratic.

And you're right, the messaging can be full of nasty social media.

But on the other hand, sometimes the other side may have a really good idea or say something that's actually, you know, they're right.

I'm not doing this.

How do you thread that line to get through the nastiness, but also see a good idea?

Because I know you've you work with Governor Kelly on, some big projects actually over the years.

Yeah.

I, I don't know that I need to thread a line if somebody else has a good idea.

I'm not afraid of it.

Right.

I mean, even if they say it nastily.

Well, it's hard to hear it when it comes at you.

Nasty.

But when it's distilled down to the idea, I don't care if it came from a Democrat, an independent, a Republican, if it's an idea that benefits Kansas and my constituents and the people here, I. I'm glad to take it up and see what we can do with.

And that has developed into, you know, relationships that work like with with Governor Kelly.

There's a few things we were able to do together and accomplish for can doesn't you you right.

Even get critics on your own side when you do things like that right where you're going.

Why do you give her a win once I wolf, it's a win for Kansas.

It's not her win.

It's our win, right?

I mean, if it's a like doctors, they have that same response back to me.

And not just because I'm a Republican.

You know, all ideas I want you to consider, all the ideas I think that happens more on the national level, at least.

I kind of hope so.

I think at the state level, like you're saying, it's important to be able to push that aside and say, hey, because it's a very different animal than the national level.

You're you get more interaction.

The guys I know the deal at the federal level, right?

Everything is, TV shots or talking points, right?

There's not you're not actually spending time with someone.

And, you know, it's it's hard to, disparage and go with someone that you actually like as a human being.

And so I've worked hard to build that relationship, not just with my own caucus, but with the even the minority party.

I have a authentically positive relationship with both the governor and my minority leader.

I mean, it doesn't mean we agree.

I mean, and but, you know, honestly, you've seen it in politics, probably 80% of what you do in Topeka.

It's almost nearly unanimous, right?

Everybody's working together.

It's like it's we argue about 20% of the time.

And then you know, that five, six, 7% that you fight over.

But that's what that's what's in the news, right?

That's the media.

So everybody has this image that where everybody's just at each other's throats all the time.

The truth is we just have we have stark disagreements about, you know, this five, 6%.

But those are very, very important issues that people can get very upset about.

Let's go into one issue.

The data centers you're going to they're hearing it throughout this campaign.

There's a new poll out by, The Economist, a national poll that said that 20% of Americans said data centers would be a good thing.

Republicans were 31% were still really low.

Yeah.

Democrats said an affiliate is worth 13.

So it's very, very low.

This is, in my experience, this is I've never seen an issue change and be so tumultuous in such a quick amount of time.

In other states, the Republican candidates for governor tend to be there, like in Ohio with Rama Swami, or other Senate races, whatever.

They're actually saying moratoriums.

Florida.

So right here, where do you stand on this issue with sort of my question leading to that?

This is just the beginning sort of.

Yeah.

I mean, there's a lot to unpack there.

I think some of what you're seeing is just the, there's so much fear out there.

And.

Right, so politics generally responds to that fear trying to just guess the political winds and the political way.

That's not generally how I operate.

I do think, you know, we've been having this conversation in Kansas for a couple of years now.

It just was not nearly I mean, I agree with you.

It has changed.

I didn't even remember when the tax incentive bill came.

I was like, oh yeah, we'll see.

Let's see.

That's another thing that people call it, this tax and Senate bill.

It was also it was way more than that.

That's a small as part of that bill was that it gave that exemption on the equipment in the building.

You like a farmer doesn't pay tax on his tractor because it's part of inputs.

That's the only thing that Bill did.

The rest of it mandated they pay their way on power and had the conversation back then was around guardrails on cost of energy and the the element of security, cybersecurity, the China element.

And the main thing that bill did, it banned Chinese equipment inside any data center in Kansas.

It required inspections of the fusion center, required they pay their way on power and all those things.

But that was that conversation.

I think now as that conversation's evolved, there's a tremendous amount of misinformation in the market on it.

So we need to look through and find what's true, what's true about it and what's not.

I do think we need to add some additional guardrails coming into this next session around land use and water and trying to term.

I don't think they can use.

I think under current law, I don't think they can use eminent domain for something like that, because I'm a big I oppose in a domain for anything that's not an infrastructure project.

It's I want to make sure that's clear too.

So I think here's here's how I see the data center argument.

If you got to have the guardrails in place and probably at the state level so you don't have some high powered lawyer come in from Google, right.

And, and overwhelm a local government.

Right.

You got to make sure.

So you got to make sure you got the land use right the water use right the environment around it.

They're paying their own way on power.

And you got the security piece.

Because we are in a cold war with China over the the use of AI within that all.

If all those guardrails in place, then it really needs to be a local decision and let the locals decide because there are places they make sense and places they don't.

And as long as the guardrails are in place, because the idea is you don't want it throwing off a dollar of cost to the neighbors, right?

A matter of fact, it should be the opposite, because the only the big positive I would see would be, they they produce a tremendous amount of property tax.

And we're in a property tax crisis in this, in this state.

And so I'd much rather have met and Google paying a big chunk of property tax than my neighbor.

We spent most of this time getting to know you, which is fine with me.

Talked about one issue, but you got about a minute left.

Derek Schmidt after the last election said, I wish we'd spent more time talking about this.

He regretted a few things.

Are you seeing an issue or a topic or something you want to do?

We got about a minute, where you're going to say, you know, we're not talking about this, but I want to talk about it more during this campaign.

Well, I think we're talking about the big issues, property tax.

And it is one thing this state, has never taken on.

You mentioned so about being a different kind of governor that's been kind of a third rail.

All the local spending is complicated, but it is number one.

Everywhere I go, number one is with property tax.

We're literally taxing fixed income people out of their houses on the back end.

And we're making it hard for young people to own housing.

And homeownership is the underpinning of the middle class in this country.

We have to have I want my kids to have the same access to the American dream.

I want your kids to have the same access to the American dream that I had.

Moving forward of that involves being able to affordably own a home.

And so it's all about working against the winds to create an affordable environment for our kids.

Well, thank you so much for joining us.

Up next is State Senator Cindy Holscher.

Now, Senator Holscher, so nice that you're here to join us.

I appreciate you coming.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's great to be back.

I'm going to do something that probably you didn't do, the Chamber of Commerce, interviews that you did.

I want to take you back to 1981.

You're 12 years old.

The top TV shows were The Love Boat, Chips and Happy Days, the top songs for Betty Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes, and The One That You Love by Air Supply.

And your middle school teacher says to you, Cindy, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Not what you think you'll be.

What did you want to be?

Oh, that's so funny.

You know, at that point I was probably thinking veterinarian.

Really?

Honestly.

Yeah.

Okay.

Up on a farm, love animals.

So that's really where my mind was.

Now I will tell you.

So that was 81.

Yeah.

So yeah, I will say about that time frame, we had a project in, my class that was you were supposed to name your own island and design your own island.

And I remember after that was done, I was voted most likely to be the, the ruler of an island nation.

So hopefully not Gilligan's Island.

No.

Another good show from that - classic.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, you know, maybe.

But you weren't you didn't write down governor of a state.

I did not like.

I was focused on being a veterinarian and taking care of animals so that time travel to right now, now you want to be governor.

Why do you want to be governor?

I think the words compelled.

Why am I compelled to run?

Why am I compelled to be governor?

You know, I first ran for office in 2016 at the height of the Brownback experiment, which was devastating our state.

And as you recall, those were tax breaks for some of the wealthiest across Kansas.

As a result, we were seeing funds being swept from KDOT.

We were underfunding our schools.

We had all of these huge budget cuts and my kids were in school at that point.

And, you know, Kansas has always had great public education.

Of course, I always joke, of course, about the time my kids got into school.

So when the Brownback experiment was happening and we were seeing, like I said, all of these huge cuts, we were losing teachers.

We didn't have supplies.

We even had shower curtains for classroom doors in some of our buildings.

I mean, that's where things were.

So I went ahead and ran for office, defeating a three term Republican incumbent in a very red area.

And in that first session was a co-founder of the Women's Bipartisan Caucus.

We're the group that put together the bill to end the Brownback experiment, which was no easy lift.

It was a lot of work to do, but we got it done.

So over time, over these past ten years, we've made some progress in terms of digging out of that, you know, that horrible hole, that deficit that was there and rebuilding.

But there's still more work to be done.

But the biggest thing is this, you know, we're at this crossroads really is what it feels like in terms of we have, a MAGA supermajority in the legislature and the individual running, you know, on the other side, Ty Masterson, he has a very different vision for Kansas than what you know, what I have in mind.

And the fact of the matter is, you know, with Senator Masterson, if he were to be governor, we would see some replication of the things happening on the federal level.

Additionally, you know, he has really been focused over the past several years on attacking public education, defunding, and bringing back something worse than the Brownback experiment.

So I'm compelled to run because I've been able to defeat candidates like him.

And I know that's not what Kansas won.

Kansans want.

They don't want that vision, and that agenda that he has been promoting.

You know, Kansans want to make sure life is more affordable.

And that's where I am.

And again, you know, I have worked here for ten years in the legislature working to ensure that our schools are funded at least adequately.

I'm not going to hand the reins over to somebody who, you know, doesn't have that same belief system in terms of what's important for our people and for our state.

Yeah, you've touched on a number of issues we'll get hopefully we get to a couple of those.

But there are some people who told you not to run.

We know that.

So talk about, that maybe you just say I was really compelled.

You decided to run anyway.

But regardless of issues, what kind of governor do you see yourself being in terms of the type of person you are?

Because a governor is not you know, we know a laundry list of issues.

We know from our history that people, the citizens, remember a certain governor and they'll often cite personality traits or the way they governed.

How do you see yourself - as a fighter for the people.

And that's what compelled me to run in the first place, too, because you're right, even at that, that very first election, I was told maybe I shouldn't run because I'm not connected to the right type of people.

I'm not connected to DC.

I don't come from a family of politicians.

I was raised on a farm, and I come from a military family and a union family.

And because of that, I fight so hard for public education as well as working families, because a good union job and public education is what helped my family and so many others out there.

So like I said, you know, additionally, I was told even with that first election that maybe I wasn't the right type of person to run.

But not only did I run, I won every single precinct in that election.

And have continuously worked for the people and fight for the people.

And that's partly why I was so focused on ending the Brownback experiment.

You know, that was an unfair setup where wealthy folks were getting, a lot of breaks there, and the burden was shifted to everybody else.

And people as well as businesses.

And our state suffered from it.

The, obviously, we know from the primary, but not just in Kansas, across the nation, the data center slash AI, issue.

But now going into things like flock cameras, it's just the whole, you know, technology thing.

There's a new poll out by The Economist about data centers, national poll.

They're good for, you know, they're a good thing.

20%, 20%, Republicans, only 31% said yes, Dems and and unaffiliated 13%.

You've been you've been on this issue through the primaries.

But what's fascinating is that in, Republican candidates in Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, they are, I'm not going to say they're adopting your position, but they are actually closer to you, so quickly, you know, we going to be able to get some other things.

What?

Where do you stand on the data center issue?

And what if you're a governor, you know, how would you approach that?

Yeah.

You know, we have data centers out there.

And I'm always going to look for economic opportunities, but not at the cost of exploiting our resources or our people.

And that's what I'm hearing is the concern, as I've traveled all across the state conducting over 80 town halls across Kansas, people are absolutely worried.

And that's why you see such impressive, really amazing numbers there in terms of where people are, because what they've seen happen in other states and somewhat here in Kansas, too, is that, you know, these big tech companies steamroll the local, branches of government, city councils and such.

And there's been a lack of transparency.

And so the thing is, I issued a call for a moratorium to make sure we have the appropriate guardrails in place, because once the deal is made, it's too late to do that.

And again, our people are absolutely worried about their water being sucked up or polluted and their utility rates going up.

You know, and in some areas we've seen utility rates increase by 80%.

So my standpoint is this, you know, I want this to be a fair situation where our economies profit and and benefit and where our people do too.

And when it comes to the people, here's another thing we've seen with these data centers, these hyperscale, there's often been the promise of jobs.

But what we've seen happen is often these companies bring in their own construction crews from out of state.

And part of that so that local benefit isn't even realized.

And again, I'm from a union family.

I want to make sure that we benefit, that we're getting those construction jobs, that it's union jobs, livable wages.

Because again, like I said, I'm all in favor of making sure that we are, you know, exploring economic potential, but not by exploiting resources, resources or people.

This can be done the right way.

And that's what I want to make sure happens.

Yeah, I think it's also linked to a fear of AI.

But so if you if you are governor, good luck with that as well because I think that's, that's going to be the ball.

And you know, the other thing that I hear a lot of my peers saying who haven't quite come over to the other side, I guess in terms of this issue, that it's local control and I absolutely respect local control.

But our local branches and our people are reaching out to us as state leaders because water is a shared resource, you know, and that's a situation that obviously calls for some guardrails to help out the local level.

So they're not steamrolled.

There's also three cities currently, I think Edgerton, El Dorado and Emporia that are actually suing the petitioners who are against data centers.

So that's a whole dynamic.

That's a little bit odd.

But let me go on to rural Kansas.

The.

Roz's.

A lot of people said they didn't work.

They stopped doing it.

Rural Opportunity Zones population is declining in a number of rural counties, whereas in northeast Kansas it's doing pretty well up in Johnson County.

What about rural is there you know, Brownback tried some things.

What, you know, can be done maybe to stem that population decline or help out rural Kansas.

Well, sir, you know, you've got to make sure that those rural areas have certain offerings and certain things, you know, available to them.

Hospitals.

Yeah.

Yeah, we said it together.

Yes, absolutely.

And so the fact we haven't expanded Medicaid has caused hospital closures over the past decade.

We have forfeited over $7 billion in our revenue.

That should be going to our communities, you know, our medical facilities and helping our people.

So that's an absolute travesty that that hasn't happened.

But again, you lose hospitals that not only affects access to care, but great jobs.

They lose those jobs.

You know, the other thing that goes through my mind is we keep seeing these attacks on public education, this voucher movement, which essentially is a transfer of wealth that takes money out of the pot for you know, funding for our schools and transfers it most often seven out of ten times.

Those vouchers go to folks who are already sending their kids to private schools.

And make over six figures.

Now, we've, over the years, been told that it's to help poorer families get away from schools that aren't doing so well.

But that's not the reality.

The reality is, again, it's a transfer of wealth.

So what happens then is that obviously affects the rural areas in terms of how much revenues available for funding.

Now, if we have this happen in Kansas, what we've seen happen in other states, we're going to lose schools out there.

You know, that's the next thing that will hurt those rural communities.

Probably the final nail in the coffin for some.

They say if the school goes up and the town goes because, again, not just the school which are losing good jobs, are school districts in some of our counties are one of the top 2 or 3 employers.

So now you've lost more good jobs.

And then it goes to data centers too.

I was just on a farm last week where, you know, the gentleman there and his wife were telling me, you know, there's a data center that wants to come in, wants to build what's that going to do to their farm in terms of potential resale value?

I mean, absolutely huge concern.

So those are things that certainly are not helping us in rural areas.

In terms of making sure it's attractive and some of those small communities.

Yeah, we literally have 30s I'm sorry about that.

But is there an issue that you're not seeing being talked about yet through questions or whatever in 30s that you want to make sure you addressed in this campaign?

You know, flock cameras are starting.

You just mentioned that earlier, seeing an uptick in terms of the conversation there.

Yeah, that's right.

That's happening.

But really bigger than that.

General overall affordability and property taxes.

I'm going to focus on making sure we get the property tax relief for our people.

Thank you so much for joining us I appreciate it.

You bet.

You've been watching an IGI 2026 election special.

Keep your eye out for our continued programing on this important election year for Kansas.

If you have any comments for us, please send us an email at issues@KTWU.org.

If you would like to view this program again or any previous episodes of IGI, visit us online at watch.ktwu.org For IGI, I'm Bob Beatty.

Thanks for watching.

This program on KTWU Is brought to you by the Carol Jory Foundation.