Kansas GOP Works To Torpedo Kris Kobach’s Senate Bid

The Kansas City Star reports:

Kansas GOP chair Mike Kuckelman sent letters Thursday to two Republican candidates asking them to drop out of the race for U.S. Senate for the good of the party. In nearly identical April 23 letters to Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle and former Johnson County Commissioner Dave Lindstrom, Kuckelman cited poor fundraising and polling data to argue that the candidates lack a viable path to the Republican nomination to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Roberts.

Kuckelman’s warning is an indirect but unmistakable reference to former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who lost to Democrat Laura Kelly in the 2018 race for governor after a historically close Republican primary that featured numerous candidates. Kobach, a Republican from Lecompton, is running in the August Senate primary. National Democrats believe his nomination could create the opening for state Sen. Barbara Bollier to be the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Kansas since 1932.

In 2018 Kobach lost his bid for Kansas governor after flaming out as the head of Trump’s now-defunct “voter fraud” commission. Kobach’s campaign was funded in part by prominent white supremacists and anti-immigrant hate groups. Kansas Republicans favor two-term Rep. Roger Marshall, a medical doctor who last appeared on JMG when he assisted injured fellow passengers in a 2018 Amtrak derailment outside of DC.