McRoberts files for 1st Congressional District seat

Democrat Colin McRoberts announced his candidacy for the U.S. representative from Kansas’ 1st Congressional District on Wednesday.

McRoberts, of Lawrence, is running for a seat the Republicans have only lost once in 150 years. Incumbent Tracey Mann has held the office since 2021.

“The long odds are exactly why this fight is so important,” McRoberts said in a news release. “Gerrymandering and partisanship have kept our incumbent politicians safe even as they give up on representing Kansans in order to serve national donors and powerbrokers. This campaign is about giving Kansans the power to choose a better deal.”

McRoberts teaches law and negotiation at the University of Kansas School of Business in Lawrence. He has previously worked as a consultant helping businesses negotiate and a lawyer defending family businesses. He earned a law degree from Harvard Law School in 2004.

McRoberts said he has lived in Kansas for a long time without being involved in politics. He wasn’t even registered as a Democrat for many years. He decided to enter the race after he drove earlier this year to Oakley, at the far western end of the 1st District, to attend a town hall called by Sen. Roger Marshall.

“I drove for four hours, along with my mother- and sister-in-law, to hear him explain the disastrous DOGE firings, destruction of USAID, and other crises happening on his watch,” he said. “But instead, I saw him walk away from his own town hall because he could not answer obvious, important questions from his own constituents. I saw him refuse to talk to Kansans, or even care about Kansans, and I knew it was time to do something. I had to stand up.”

McRoberts said his priorities include:   

— Lowering the cost of living, fighting inflation, and opening foreign markets for American crops by returning the tariff power to Congress, as the Constitution requires

— Restoring the U.S. Agency for International Development and its traditional, moral mission of buying American crops to prevent famine and save lives overseas

— Legislating a small business exemption to tariffs, allowing family farms and other businesses to import items with no reasonable domestic substitute at a reasonable cost

— Introducing and supporting federal “Right to Repair” legislation, promoting a fair market for repair services to lower repair costs for farm equipment and other products

— Working with both parties to defeat the partisan gridlock that has kept Congress from passing a new farm bill since 2018

— Reducing unemployment in Kansas by reinstating USDA and other federal employees lost in mass firings conducted by incompetent political operatives

— Ensuring that funding for law enforcement is spent on keeping Americans safe, rather than illegal and wasteful political stunts

— Working towards immigration reform that creates realistic paths to lawful citizenship and residence

— Restoring funding for scientific and medical research that Congress has allowed the president to illegally withhold

McRoberts said his career has been about problem-solving, exactly what Congress and Kansas need now. As a lawyer, he fought in the courtroom to protect family businesses from fraud. As an internationally recognized expert in negotiations, he worked on some of the most difficult and complex deals, advising major corporations, unions, diplomatic teams, and government institutions around the world on how to make better deals under the toughest conditions.

During his campaign, McRoberts said he will be fighting to give the district a representative who works for all his neighbors in Kansas, instead of the elites of one party.

“I’m fighting to remind Kansans that they can choose a stronger representative to be a check and a balance in government, as the founders intended, instead of being a pure partisan pushover,” he said.

“This campaign will remind Kansas the 1st District is not party property. We can flip the First and create a district that expects competitive elections from now on.”