Cole Epley (Kansas)

Cole Epley

Democratic Party

Candidate, U.S. House Kansas District 4

Elections and appointments

Next election

August 4, 2026

Education

High school

Rose Hill High School

Bachelor's

The University of Kansas, 2022

Military

Service / branch

U.S. Army Reserve

Personal

Profession

Social services

Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Cole Epley (Democratic Party) is running for election to the U.S. House to represent Kansas' 4th Congressional District. Epley declared candidacy for the Democratic primary scheduled on August 4, 2026.^[source]

Epley completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2026. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Cole Epley began serving in the U.S. Army Reserve in 2015. Epley earned a high school diploma from Rose Hill High School and a bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas in 2022. Epley's career experience includes working in social services.

Elections

2026

See also: Kansas' 4th Congressional District election, 2026

General election

The primary will occur on August 4, 2026. The general election will occur on November 3, 2026. General election candidates will be added here following the primary.

Democratic primary

Democratic primary for U.S. House Kansas District 4

Chris Carmichael (D), Cole Epley (D), Ryan Gilbert (D), Jordan Mitchell (D), and Daniel Schneider (D) are running in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Kansas District 4 on August 4, 2026.

		Candidate
		Chris Carmichael
		Cole Epley
		Ryan Gilbert
	Submit photo	Jordan Mitchell
	Submit photo	Daniel Schneider

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	There are no incumbents in this race.
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Republican primary

Republican primary for U.S. House Kansas District 4

Incumbent Ron Estes (R) is running in the Republican primary for U.S. House Kansas District 4 on August 4, 2026.

		Candidate
		Ron Estes

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined.
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Endorsements

Ballotpedia is gathering information about candidate endorsements. To send us an endorsement, click here.

Campaign themes

2026

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Cole Epley completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2026. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Epley's responses.

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

Hello, I am Cole Epley, a 28-year-old born-and-raised Wichitan. With a professional background in education and foster care social work, as well as 10 years and counting of service in the US Army Reserves, what gets me out of bed every day is getting the chance to advocate for people who need it most. I am a proud progressive who, amongst the vast number of political issues today, wants most to help defend the Department of Education, abolish ICE, create safer and easier means of legal immigration, and advocate for federal-level protections for LGBTQ+ and women’s reproductive rights. I want to restore higher taxes (as well as more financial accountability) for the 1% and corporations. I believe that we need to better subsidize local and family farms, helping them through bad years so we can all prosper from their success in good years. Finally, I strongly support universal healthcare, universal higher education, universal childcare, and even the far-off goal of universal basic income. From day one, my campaign has been 100% grassroots funded. It would be my honor to be your advocate in D.C., and I will not stop working to earn your support and your vote.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• We must protect the Department of Education in order to expand federal supports for special education, hold states accountable for inequitable and racially biased school district funding, and fight for publicly fund technical schools and universities.
• We must protect immigrants and undocumented Americans from inhumane treatment and deportation by abolishing ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, creating safer and easier means for future immigrants, and allowing for undocumented Americans to begin the immigration process without legal recourse for their prior stay within U.S. borders.
• We must protect women's reproductive rights and the rights of all LGBTQ+ members, especially transgender Americans, by enshrining them as the 28th and 29th Amendments in the Bill of Rights, making it much harder for bad faith actors to tamper with them in the future.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Advocacy of Youth, Education, and Human Rights

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

Campaign finance summary

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Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

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Cole Epley campaign contribution history

Year	Office	Status	Contributions	Expenditures
2026*	U.S. House Kansas District 4	Candidacy Declared primary	$0	N/A**
Grand total			$0	N/A**
Sources: OpenSecrets,  Federal Election Commission ***This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
* Data from this year may not be complete
** Data on expenditures is not available for this election cycle
Note: Totals above reflect only available data.

See also

2026 Elections

What's on the ballot? U.S. Congress U.S. Congress special elections State executives State legislatures State courts Ballot measures Municipal government School boards Election analysis hub

Government

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Newsletters

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External links

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Candidate

U.S. House Kansas District 4

Website

Facebook

Footnotes

[show]

Kansas' current delegation to the United States Congress

Senators

Roger Marshall (R)

Jerry Moran (R)

Representatives

District 1

Tracey Mann (R)

District 2

Derek Schmidt (R)

District 3

Sharice Davids (D)

District 4

Ron Estes (R)

Republican Party (5)

Democratic Party (1)