Former Wichita mayor looks back on tipster’s odd warning of scheme to harm candidacy, marriage

Brandon Whipple, a former Wichita mayor and four-term member of the Kansas House, says there are lessons to be learned from winning and losing campaigns. In this image from Oct. 25, 2025, Whipple speaks to a group of Democrats at Wichita State University. (Photo by Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — Brandon Whipple considered himself a seasoned politician before running for Wichita mayor, but years of legislative wrangling didn’t prepare him for an attack so bizarre and a coverup so flawed it consumed the political career of three conspirators.

Whipple, a Democrat who served four terms in the Kansas House, was elected mayor of the state’s largest city in 2019. He prevailed despite a misinformation campaign designed to destroy Whipple’s credibility and boost the candidacy of his rival, Republican incumbent Jeff Longwell. The strategy was to weaken Whipple by posting a salacious video to social media that featured women alleging sexual harassment among state legislators. The video viewed at least 400,000 times contained the statement: “Stop Brandon Whipple.”

Investigation and litigation led to evidence implicating House Rep. Michael Capps, Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell and Wichita City Council member James Clendenin. The GOP trio were undone by disclosure of an audio recording of them discussing how to blame other Republicans for the malicious attack. Longwell was quoted as saying the “three stooges probably cost me the election.”

“That whole campaign was pretty wild,” Whipple said on the Kansas Reflector podcast. “Like, to the point where it almost sounds like a ready-for-television type series.”

 

GOP donor’s tip

For the podcast, Whipple spoke publicly for the first time about a Republican donor who tipped him off to the GOP’s covert operation. The donor confided that he’d been asked to help fund the clandestine video.

The donor’s objection wasn’t tied to general loathing of ugly personal attacks, Whipple said. Instead, he said, the donor was upset someone had the audacity to violate an unwritten code among men forbidding the sharing of knowledge about illicit liaisons.

“He basically said that he wasn’t so much concerned with any type of extramarital type activities that men do. He was concerned that some men would actually tell on other men,” Whipple said.

Whipple said a lawsuit produced texts shared among the perpetrators in which they reveled at the chance to damage Whipple’s marriage and career. Their viciousness was alarming, he said.

“They really hated me. It’s nuts,” he said. “We’re attacking people and their character and their families. We’re not just saying, ‘Well, you voted this way.’ That was really eye-opening to me.”

In 2020, Capps lost his House reelection bid. O’Donnell and Clendenin both resigned from office.

Whipple, who described himself as a moderate Democrat, said his mayoral reelection loss in 2023 was tied to several factors. Whipple said he made exploitable mistakes as mayor. He irritated voters with a mask mandate during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the election exposed the reality of competing against a candidate with donors eager to spend eight or nine times as much as he could.

Lily Wu, a former Wichita television journalist and conservative, ousted Whipple. She had the benefit of a $190,000 investment from Americans for Prosperity. She raised about $440,000 for her campaign, a record for a Wichita mayoral contest.

“There’s something flattering, but also weird, when someone spends about $1 million to beat you in an election,” he said.

 

Learning curve

Whipple was raised in New Hampshire and earned an associate’s degree in 2003 from Hesser College. At 21, he moved to Wichita for an AmeriCorps assignment working with at-risk high school students. He earned a sociology degree and master’s degree in public administration at Wichita State University. He received a doctorate in leadership studies from Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire.

He got into electoral politics in 2006 while working on Kansas legislative campaigns. He personally lost his first campaign for the Kansas House in 2010, despite knocking on 10,000 residential doors.

“Nothing’s worse than losing. It’s very public. It’s embarrassing,” he said. “Of course, I said I was never going to run again and I was done with politics.”

Given a second bite at the apple, Whipple won a House seat in 2012. It happened not because he knocked on a certain number of homes or hit targets for telephone calls or text messages.

Success hinged on connections with people made while listening more than speaking, he said.

“The takeaway from that is this isn’t a numbers game,” Whipple said. “It’s not about the amount of conversations you have. It’s the quality of conversation.”

 

Defining success

Whipple said a member of the majority party in the Legislature could reasonably define success as prevailing on policy votes. Members of a minority party had to look beyond those totals, he said.

“The Legislature is a toxic place, which means if I’m up there debating an amendment or a bill, I better bring it. I better be prepared, because Republicans are going to line up and they’re going to take shots at me,” he said. “In the Capitol, a lot of times, it wasn’t just getting the ‘yes’ votes or even the ‘no’ votes. Sometimes it was just getting the message out of why this is important.”

Whipple said some people approached service in the House or Senate as a retirement gig. Others were there to feel important or be entertained, he said.

“If you really want to make change, you really want to get good stuff done, you got to put in that constructive time,” he said. “If not, it’s very easy to also be the person who kind of gets a reputation for drinking too many margaritas.”