Former GOP senator and 1996 presidential nominee Bob Dole, 96, endorsed Rep. Roger Marshall for Senate as the GOP establishment coalesced around the congressman following Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision not to run this year.
The endorsement of Dole, 96, came a week after Pompeo, a former Kansas congressman, told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he planned to continue in President Trump’s cabinet. McConnell and his leadership deputies recruited Pompeo in a bid to block Kris Kobach from the nomination, worrying the immigration hawk was too provocative to win a general election in otherwise deep-red Kansas. With Pompeo out, the party establishment is turning to Marshall, who announced his candidacy months ago.
“I’m proud to endorse my Congressman, Dr. Roger Marshall, for the U.S. Senate,” Dole said in a statement issued Monday by the Marshall campaign.
“He’s a true friend to me and a true friend to Kansas,” added Dole, a former Senator from Kansas, Senate majority leader, and 1996 Republican presidential nominee. “He has my full trust, and I know he will represent our state well.”
Senior Republicans believed Pompeo was inclined to resign from the State Department at some point after the Senate trial to adjudicate two articles of impeachment against Trump so that he could prepare for a campaign to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Pat Roberts. But tensions with Iran, punctuated by Trump’s decision to authorize the military strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, altered the secretary of state’s plans. Pompeo is perhaps the president’s closest confidant on national security matters.
With Pompeo out, Kobach begins the campaign for the Republican nomination for Senate as the leading candidate. But the former Kansas secretary of state lost his bid for governor in 2018, and Republicans in Washington and Kansas, worried he would lose a general election, are desperate to defeat him in the August primary. Marshall met with McConnell last week on Capitol Hill to discuss the race, and after reassessing the candidate field, Republican leaders appear to have settled on him.
There is at least one other viable contender in the race for the Republican nod, state legislator Susan Wagle. Another state legislator, Barbara Bollier, is the likely Democratic nominee. Trump, who has praised Kobach in the past and endorsed his gubernatorial bid in 2018, has not publicly taken a position on the Senate primary since Pompeo removed himself from consideration.
