Johnson County Sheriff Hayden loses primary amid anger over his election investigation

Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden lost his reelection bid in Tuesday’s primary, signaling discontent among a majority of Republican voters over his long-running and controversial election fraud investigation.

At about 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Hayden with 18,372 votes, was defeated by Republican challenger Doug Bedford, his former undersheriff who won 23,572 votes, according to unofficial final results from the Johnson County Election Office. Bedford will go on to the Nov. 5 election to face Prairie Village Police Chief Byron Roberson, a Democrat.

According to the election office, 76,947 ballots were cast in the primary, representing 21.4% voter turnout. For the sheriff’s Republican primary, 41,944 votes were cast.

For Johnson County voters, the primary was the first real opportunity to render a verdict on Hayden’s conduct in office since he started his election fraud investigation following former President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat. Hayden’s loss demonstrates a growing divide among leadership of the local GOP, which has moved further to the right, and the county’s base of more moderate Republicans.

The primary results set up a general election contest between two longtime law enforcement officials for sheriff, a historically solidly Republican seat in the county that has become dramatically more Democratic over the past decade. The county in 2020 broke its tradition of electing Republican presidents, after narrowly backing Trump in 2016.

Bedford previously served as Hayden’s undersheriff. His credentials in law enforcement and as a former Navy SEAL have helped him gain the public endorsements of dozens of sheriff’s department employees and retirees, including former Johnson County Sheriff Frank Denning, Hayden’s predecessor.

“The whole platform that we’ve been running on is trust, transparency and the most important, I believe, is teamwork,” Bedford said at a Tuesday night watch party at JT’s Grill in De Soto. “And that’s why we’re all here. I’m very confident in the campaign. I know we ran a very good campaign, a campaign I think anyone would be proud of.”

Hayden, who has spent roughly three decades in the sheriff’s office, has conducted his election investigation without making specific allegations or offering evidence of fraud. Critics say his actions effectively cast a cloud of suspicion over county elections that harms civic trust. Meanwhile he has regularly touted the probe at far-right events and continued to sow doubt about the elections system.

When asked whether he would accept the results of this election at a recent Johnson County Post forum, Hayden replied: “Honestly I can’t say that I do, knowing what I know and knowing the information we have uncovered.”

Hayden, who previously served as a county commissioner, won a competitive Republican primary in 2016, to then run unopposed in that general election and again unopposed in 2020.

One month ago, Hayden shelved his investigation, which has resulted in no criminal charges while energizing conspiracy theorists and raising questions about the office’s spending. The investigation appeared centered on Konnech, an election software company the county previously used to manage election workers. The program had nothing to do with voting or voting information.

Konnech earlier this year warned Hayden that he should be careful about continuing a “baseless” investigation and making public statements about the company, saying doing so could result in “serious consequences.”

Hayden spent the last weeks of his campaign painting himself as a figure similar to Trump. Earlier this month, his campaign framed an ethics complaint filed against him and an unflattering poll shared by his Republican primary opponent —typical campaigning, Bedford countered — as “election interference.”

Hayden, seeking a third term, compared his own political fight to that of Trump.

Bedford, who worked in the sheriff’s office from 1997 to 2021, has campaigned on building trust in the law enforcement agency.

“I would do my best to stay out of partisan politics. The sheriff – you need to be everybody’s sheriff and that’s how I lead,” Bedford previously said.

Bedford has criticized Hayden for failing to show evidence of election fraud or provide greater details of his probe, despite discussing it at public events.

“I thought it should either be all or nothing. You should either say, ‘I’m not going to say a word or I’ll disclose what’s taking place,’” Bedford previously told The Star.

If he were elected, Bedford said he would examine whether there is any evidence, and then either present his findings to the district attorney’s office or “close it completely.”