Former Johnson County commissioner Charlotte O’Hara has announced she will run for the Republican nomination for Kansas governor.
O’Hara, a conservative member of the Board of County Commissioners known for her skepticism of development tax incentives, diversity programs and COVID mitigation measures, announced her intentions as her term ended in January but made it official Monday via a news release.
In her announcement, O’Hara vowed to make property taxes a focus of her campaign.
Referencing her background as a contractor, small business owner and substitute teacher, O’Hara said, “I cannot stand silent and watch small businesses and homeowners be destroyed through high property taxes or watch our children drown in the sewer of WOKEism in our schools. It is time to have a proven conservative at the helm of our Republican supermajority.”
O’Hara told the Post she had recently returned from about a two-week listening tour covering central and western Kansas that will be the first in a series of trips to listen to residents’ concerns.
O’Hara was a commissioner representing southern Johnson County from 2021 to 2025 but lost her reelection bid last year to Julie Brewer.
While on the commission, she was an outspoken opponent of a county homeless shelter proposed for a Lenexa hotel and a frequent critic of tax abatements and property tax increases.
As a candidate, she said she will focus on “reining in state spending and ludicrous corporate welfare, ban (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts) and get schools back to education.”
Early in her term on the county commission, O’Hara also pushed for the demolition of an abandoned and environmentally challenged die casting plant just outside southern Overland Park that was near a neighborhood school.
She is entering a potentially crowded field of Republicans as Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, is ending her second term and is term-limited from running again in 2026. (She has said she does not plan run for another office.)
Another Johnson Countian, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab of Overland Park has already announced his intention to run for governor, and Ty Masterson, president of the Kansas Senate, has also been mentioned as a likely candidate.
Wichita business owner Stacy Rogers has also announced her candidacy and Wichita school board member Joy Eakins is also reportedly considering a bid.
Although the field is crowded, O’Hara believes she will be the strongest candidate because she is, “conservative, through and through, battle tested and ready to work for the folks of Kansas, not the chosen few benefiting from corporate welfare.”
