Long lines at polls delay Kansas results

The Latest on primaries in Missouri, Kansas, Michigan and Washington state Tuesday night:

Kansas

A Kansas official says long lines at polling places delayed election results in the state’s most populous county as Gov. Jeff Colyer and Secretary of State Kris Kobach were locked in a tight race for the Republican nomination for governor.

State elections director Bryan Caskey said some polling places in Johnson County in the suburbs of Kansas City remained open until about 8 p.m. to accommodate people who were in line to vote when polls officially closed at 7 p.m.

e says that led local officials to delay reporting their first results, from votes cast in advance.

Johnson County has nearly 408,000 registered voters, or almost 23 percent of the state’s total of 1.8 million.

Missouri

A black Ferguson city councilman leads longtime St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch in a contest some see as a referendum on McCulloch’s handling of the investigation into Michael Brown’s death.

With the vote counted from nearly 90 percent of precincts, the county reported Wesley Bell leading the 67-year-old McCulloch by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin in the Democratic primary. No Republicans are running for prosecutor.

McCulloch, who is white, is seeking an eighth term.

Bell is a 43-year-old attorney and former municipal judge and prosecutor. He was elected councilman in 2015 as protests raged over Brown’s death.

Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, died Aug. 9, 2014, in a street confrontation with white officer Darren Wilson. A St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict Wilson, who later resigned. Some critics accused McCulloch of skewing the investigation in favor of the officer.

Washington

Republican Susan Hutchison gained a top-two finish in Washington state’s primary to advance to the November general election.

The former television newscaster and GOP state party chairwoman was finishing second. Under Washington’s primary system, the top two votegetters go on to November, regardless of party.

Hutchison is the former state Republican Party chairwoman. She is making a longshot bid to oust the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Maria Cantwell, who is seeking a fourth term.

Missouri

Missouri voters rejected a right-to-work law banning mandatory union fees in workplace contracts. The vote marked a major victory for unions, which poured millions of dollars into a campaign to defeat Proposition A. The right-to-work law originally was enacted in 2017 by Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature and governor. But it never took effect, because unions gathered enough petition signatures to force a public referendum on it.