Not a demon, not a witch: Kansas Democratic candidate for governor answers a Republican smear

Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, the Republican nominee for governor, told a Wichita congregation at Praise Chapel that his contest and the U.S. Senate race between Roger Marshall and Hamilton are spiritual battles. He alleged that his Democratic rival, state Sen. Cindy Holscher, was winning help through demonic means, and he singled out her 21-year-old daughter, Maddie Holscher, for casting spells on TikTok. Masterson, who leads in the polls, did not answer MS NOW's requests for comment.

The videos he apparently meant show Maddie, a University of Missouri senior studying statistics and public health, waving her arms in a popular meme whose audio comes from a Spanish-dubbed scene of the show Charmed. Maddie called her account goofy and playful and said she is a student trying to pass math tests while backing her mother. Cindy Holscher said she was raised Lutheran, rejected the charge, and argued that candidates without a record to defend turn to name-calling. She called Masterson's fixation on a college student's posts weird.

MS NOW notes that Donald Trump has used similar language about opponents. Whitney Phillips, a University of Oregon professor, said portraying rivals as devils shuts them out of civic life.

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →