Brandon Whipple

Brandon Whipple (born July 13, 1982) is an American politician and academic who formerly served as mayor of Wichita, Kansas.

He previously served as a Democratic member of the Kansas House of Representatives representing the 96th district, which included part of south Wichita and was the Ranking Minority member on the Higher Education Budget committee.

When the Kansas Legislature was not in session, Whipple served as an adjunct professor of American politics at Wichita State University, his alma mater.

Whipple earned his Associate of Arts in liberal studies from New Hampshire's Hesser College in 2003.

He moved to Wichita, Kansas, at age 21 in a year-long education-service mission with AmeriCorps, working with at-risk youth at Wichita South High School.

While there, he discovered he could afford to attend Wichita State University (WSU).

He graduated from WSU with a bachelor's degree in sociology and a minor in psychology; later at WSU, he earned a master's degree in liberal studies, with an emphasis on cross-cultural studies and public administration.

While at Wichita State, Whipple was a student senator in WSU's Student Government Association, an experience he credits as decisive in his later entry into the Kansas legislature (particularly a trip to the state capitol to lobby for student issues).

Whipple later acquired a Doctor of Arts in leadership studies from Franklin Pierce University, a private college in New Hampshire.

As a member of Wichita's Southwest Neighborhood Association, Whipple served on its executive board.

Whipple first ran for the Kansas House of Representatives in 2010 against Phil Hermanson.

Whipple lost, but shortly afterward the Sedgwick County Democratic Party elected him its vice chair.

In 2012, he was elected the county party's chair.

Subsequently, while serving in the Kansas Legislature, Whipple also served as an adjunct instructor for various Wichita-area colleges and universities, including Wichita State University, Southwestern College and some commercial colleges—particularly teaching political science, history and sociology.

In 2012, in a run for the Kansas House 96th District seat (in south Wichita), he was criticized by Tea Party Republican Craig Gable for not having children.

Whipple defeated Republican Rick Lindsey.

2013–2014 session

Whipple was re-elected to the seat in 2014, 2016 and 2018, in a district that voted for Donald Trump for president in 2016.

2015–2016 session

In 2016, Whipple was elected Agenda Chair for the Democrats in the Kansas House of Representatives—the #6 position in House Democratic party leadership.

2017–2018 session

In 2018, he co-founded the bipartisan Kansas Future Caucus, a group of under-45 Kansas legislators, to focus attention on issues of concern to young people.

Among his principal efforts in office was increased funding for education, particularly restoration of funding cuts made during the administration of Kansas governor Sam Brownback.

Whipple defeated incumbent Jeff Longwell in the 2019 Wichita mayoral election.

He ran for a second term as mayor in the 2023 Wichita mayoral election, but lost to Lily Wu.

Whipple was raised in Dover, New Hampshire.

In the 2019 Kansas Legislature, Whipple was Ranking minority member on the Joint Committee on Information Technology, and the Higher Education Budget Committee.

He was also assigned to the Committee on Elections and the Joint Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice Oversight.

2019–2020 session

Whipple ran in the 2019 election for mayor of Wichita.

In the nonpartisan primary election, preliminary results put Whipple (with 5,729 votes; 25.9% of the total) second only to Republican Mayor Longwell (who had 7,136 votes; 32.3%).

Candidate Lyndy Wells, also a Republican, had only 160 votes fewer in initial returns: 5,569 votes; 25.2%, so delayed acceptance of the result in hopes that a review of 1,000 yet-uncounted ballots (including 500 provisional ballots) might turn the election to his favor.

The final count nearly doubled Whipple's lead over Wells, advancing Whipple and Longwell to the ballot for the November 5 runoff election.

Wells mounted a write-in campaign.

In October 2019, Whipple found himself the victim of an elaborate, multi-state, covert smear campaign in which Republican state Representative Michael Capps was implicated as a perpetrator.

After Sedgwick County, Kansas Republican party chair Dalton Glasscock called for Capps to resign, Capps claimed that Glasscock had actually approved the production of the ad, which Glasscock denied.

Money raised for the production of the video was alleged to have been laundered through a charitable non-profit organization directed by Capps to conceal the identities of the alleged perpetrators.

Newly created anonymous entities also attacked both Whipple and Wells weighed via several mailers.

Although the sending organizations used different names, they were all linked through a postal permit held by a Kansas City bulk-mail service.

The funding of the salacious video as well as the anonymous mailers will not be required to be reported, according to the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission.