‘People are hurting’: Kansas Democrat takes aim at Republican incumbent’s congressional seat
Katy Tyndell appears for a March 13, 2026, podcast recording at the Kansas Reflector newsroom in Topeka. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — Katy Tyndell’s path to politics began with a meeting last March at Groover Labs, a makerspace in downtown Wichita, where dozens of people gathered to talk about how they were going to hold leaders accountable.
They were bothered by what they saw after President Donald Trump reclaimed office, Tyndell said on the Kansas Reflector podcast. There was the way Elon Musk’s DOGE took “a chainsaw to federal government,” the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development without congressional authorization, and the devolution of relations with Ukraine, she said.
The meeting gave rise to a nonpartisan civic engagement group called Leading Kansas, which Tyndell cofounded. Earlier this year, at the behest of group members and local officials, Tyndell decided to switch her party affiliation from independent to Democrat and enter the 4th District congressional race. Her goal is to unseat U.S. Rep. Ron Estes, a Republican who has held the office since 2017.
“People are hurting, right?” Tyndell said. “Kansans aren’t the only ones that are wondering how they’re going to be able to afford their health care now that the ACA subsidies have gone away, or whether or not their kids are going to have access to good schools, and now we’ve got the war in Iran looming over all of this. And so I think people are hungry to get back to some semblance of normal, and right now we have a lawmaker who isn’t showing up and isn’t providing leadership on any of these issues.”
At least six Democrats, including Tyndell, have shown interest in the race. They include Air Force veteran Chris Carmichael, U.S. Army Reserve veteran Cole Epley, U.S. Army Reserve veteran Daniel Schneider, family law business manager Ryan Gilbert, and Jordan Mitchell. Schneider has left the race to run for the state Legislature instead.
‘Things are very unstable’
Tyndell said she is different from the other candidates because she has experience in policymaking.
She grew up in a rural farming and ranching community in northeast Oregon, which instilled the values of “hard work, personal responsibility, taking care of your neighbor, sense of community,” she said.
From there, she went to Stanford University and then the University of Maryland, where she earned a law degree. She said she landed her dream job as a staff attorney for the National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C. She said she worked on the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013.
She returned to Kansas to help her dad run the family business, an oil and gas operating company that her grandfather started in the 1970s.
Tyndell said she had no intention of becoming involved in politics until she saw what happened when Trump took office last year.
Democrats face long odds in the 4th District, where Estes won 65% of the vote in 2024. But Tyndell said this is a unique year, with incumbents especially vulnerable.
“Things are very unstable right now,” Tyndell said. “And so when you have a refusal by Congress to step up and do their job of governing, of legislating and just completely capitulating to the executive branch, I think that makes people nervous. Because what happens is we lose our representative government, right? If we don’t have our lawmakers speaking up on our behalf, and they’re just completely capitulating to Donald Trump, then our system of checks and balances has failed. And I think that’s where we are right now, and I think people are starting to clue into that.”
‘An inflection point’
Tyndell said she leads by being the person in the room who amplifies the voices of those who don’t have a seat at the table, “and that’s what we need in this moment.
She said she is frustrated that Congress is “nowhere to be seen” with the war in Iran. She said tariffs have been “a little haphazard,” and especially harmful to farmers. She said the “big, beautiful bill” compromised access to affordable health care. And on reproductive rights, she said “the voters of Kansas have spoken on the issue,” a reference to the 2022 vote to defeat a constitutional amendment that would have taken away the right to terminate a pregnancy.
She said immigration enforcement “is yet another issue that is extremely frustrating to me, because Congress has a job to legislate.”
“I don’t have all the answers, but we know we need immigration reform,” Tyndell said. “We know we need acceptable pathways to citizenship, and we know that the current administration’s tactics right now, in terms of enforcement, are quite literally killing our neighbors.”
In summary, she said, “we are in an inflection point in our history.”
“My dad always used to tell me that protecting freedom for future generations requires sacrifice, and this is a moment that calls for it,” Tyndell said. “We need leadership rooted in integrity, accountability and the courage to put people over party, and that’s the kind of leader that I will be. But this election isn’t about me. It’s about all of us determining what kind of future we want for America and for the next generation.”