Mann making another run at First District seat

Ten years after coming up short in the Republican primary for the U.S. House of Representatives First District seat, Tracey Mann is making another run for office.
Mann, a small businessman and commercial real estate agent from Salina, finished third in the GOP primary for the First District seat in 2010 in a race that was won by Tim Huelskamp.
Huelskamp would go on to win the general election. He served three terms in the House before being defeated in the primary by Dr. Roger Marshall in 2016.
Marshall opted to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Pat Roberts.
Mann is one of three Republican candidates in the primary, along with Bill Clifford and Troy L. Waymaster.
“In 2010 when I ran I saw cap and trade, I saw Obamacare, a lot of things I disagreed with. Just got fed up and decided to run. Thirty years old and not getting elected, politics was then off my radar,” Mann said during a stop in Concordia on Friday.
Unable to run a typical campaign during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mann is traveling around the First District on a media tour.
Mann would serve in office when Jeff Colyer appointed him lieutenant governor in 2018 after Governor Sam Brownback left office.
Colyer and Mann lost in the 2018 primary to Kris Kobach and Wink Hartman.
“When I got appointed lieutenant governor, that put politics back on the radar. So I served with governor Colyer, and now with the (House) seat being open we decided to run for it,” Mann said of his decision to run again, “Now specifically I want to go to Washington to advocate for agriculture and our conservative Kansas values.”
Mann said that the key to making things better for Kansas farmers is to increase demand for their products.
“In the near term the increase in demand is restarting the economy. Longer term, we have got to increase trade,” Mann said, “The future of agriculture is trade.”
Mann said that a lot of problems concerning agriculture right now include low commodity prices, low livestock prices, trade barriers, and gaps in our rural broadband coverage.
“All of those were problems before COVID. COVID came along and made all of those things worse,” Mann said, “But the real answer long term is trade. I think if we can increase free trade it is going to raise prices and that is going to help Main Street Concordia, that is going to help Main Street Quinter where I am from, because we are ag economies.”
In setting himself apart from the other two candidates in the Republican primary race, Mann said he is the most conservative.
“I am the most conservative of all of the candidates. I would be pro-life, pro-ag, pro-gun and pro-Trump,” Mann said.