Kansas Republican primary voters doused the comeback hopes of Kris Kobach, an Ivy League-educated, anti-immigration activist and favorite of President Trump, denying Democrats a new avenue to win a majority in the Senate.
Kobach, 54, lost his Kansas Republican Senate primary against Kansas U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall, wealthy plumbing executive Bob Hamilton, and others for the right to contest retiring Sen. Pat Roberts’s seat.
The Tuesday race became a flashpoint for the GOP after fears Kobach’s victory could mean spending more resources defending him against party-switching Democratic state Sen. Barbara Bollier.
General election polling suggested Bollier had better odds against Kobach than his rivals, with Democrats only needing a net gain of three or four seats to flip the Senate in the fall. The Republican-aligned Plains PAC invested $3.3 million on ads undermining Kobach, while the Sunflower State PAC, a Democratic group, spent $5.3 million boosting his candidacy.
Kobach, a former Kansas secretary of state and Trump ally on issues such as immigration and voting rights, was defeated by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in their 2018 gubernatorial campaigns.
Apart from his electoral record, Kobach struggled with poor fundraising compared to his 2020 opponents. Bollier had $4.2 million in the bank, as opposed to Marshall’s $1 million, self-funding Hamilton’s $964,000, and Kobach’s $136,000 last month.
While no candidate earned Trump’s endorsement, Marshall was the establishment favorite. He was backed by four-term incumbent Roberts, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund, as well as longtime ex-Kansas senator and 1996 presidential nominee Bob Dole.
Toward the latter part of his bid, Marshall tried to portray Hamilton as being too liberal with soft immigration positions. Marshall’s attacks hinted at his concerns that Hamilton could siphon votes away from him.
Meanwhile, Kobach, a graduate of Harvard and Yale Law School, largely ignored Hamilton, focusing instead on Marshall.
Kobach highlighted Marshall’s weaker immigration stance. He also pushed reports that the county attorney son of Marshall’s old orthopedic surgical center business partner and neighbor asked a district court judge in 2008 to remove Marshall’s reckless driving conviction from a sentencing document and replace it with a lesser traffic infraction.
