David Miller chosen to lead No Labels Kansas Party push

A former Kansas Republican Party official from Eudora now leads No Labels Kansas, putting a Douglas County name at the center of a minor-party effort that says it wants to give voters a real alternative at the ballot box.

David Miller, a former Kansas House member and former chair of the Kansans for Life Political Action Committee, was unanimously chosen to chair the party. He said No Labels Kansas had more than 6,000 members and aimed to become Kansas’ third-largest party by November, a goal that would give the group more leverage in a state still dominated by Republicans and Democrats.

For Douglas County voters, the significance is not just another party label. Miller’s rise suggests No Labels Kansas is trying to turn ballot access into a lasting political presence, especially in eastern Kansas, where Eudora sits alongside the larger voting base in Lawrence. If the group can hold together its membership and recruit candidates, residents could start seeing more third-party petitions, campaign pitches and local names attached to statewide races.

The party’s path has already been turbulent. Kansas officially recognized No Labels in January 2024 after organizers submitted signatures equal to 2 percent of the total votes cast in the 2022 governor’s race, clearing the threshold needed for ballot access in the 2024 election cycle. Later that year, the Kansas Attorney General’s Office and Secretary of State Scott Schwab examined allegations of forged signatures on party petitions. Two Florida men, George Andrews and Jamie Johnson, were arrested in connection with the case.

Schwab also invalidated an attempted No Labels nomination tied to Republican operative Kris Van Meteren after determining he was not authorized to act for the party. National No Labels leaders said Van Meteren had unaffiliated himself and fraudulently misrepresented his role.

Miller has tried to cast the party as an answer to voter frustration with both major parties, pointing to the 93 percent Kansas legislative salary increase in 2025 and the move to a four-day legislative work week as evidence that Kansans were fed up with Topeka. No Labels Kansas treasurer John Altevogt has taken the same anti-establishment line, attacking bipartisan state incentives tied to the Chiefs stadium deal as a taxpayer subsidy.

The emerging picture is less a clean political reset than a test of whether Kansas voters will follow a familiar conservative operator into a new label. That question matters in Douglas County because the next sign of success would not be a press release. It would be a ballot line, a petition drive and, eventually, candidates asking local voters to break from the two-party system.