Pompeo Hits Up Sheldon Adelson To Back Senate Run

McClatchy reports:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has reached out to Sheldon Adelson, the Republican Party’s largest donor, in recent weeks to “gauge interest” in his potential run for an open Senate seat in Kansas next year, three sources familiar with the matter told McClatchy.

It is the latest evidence of Pompeo’s outreach campaign to rally donor support around a potential Senate bid, following similar conversations with Charles Koch, a Kansas resident, as well as donors affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Pompeo has flirted with a run for months, and President Donald Trump said on Tuesday in London that he would encourage his secretary of state to leave office and run if he believed Republicans were at risk of losing the seat.

Last year Trump awarded Sheldon Adelson’s wife with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, after the couple poured over $100 million into the 2018 race.