» Kansas GOP primary for governor still too close to call,
The Kansas Republican primary for governor remained too close to call Wednesday, with razor-thin margins separating the candidates in each race.
Republican Party leaders are now steeling for a 90-day campaign of trench warfare across the country as they fight to keep control of the House, pinning their hopes on a handful of well-funded outside groups and a slashing negative message about Democrats to try to salvage the smallest of congressional majorities.
Republicans believe they can maintain a thin grip on the House by propping up incumbent lawmakers in red-tinged districts. But senior party strategists have concluded that more than a dozen districts currently held by Republicans may already be unwinnable, and the GOP can only afford to lose 22 seats overall to main- tain even a 1-seat majority. That leaves them with pain- fully little room for error over the remaining three months of the campaign.
Veteran party lawmakers have an increasingly bleak view of their prospects in the House, and some fear that Democrats could seize the chamber by a convinc- ing margin.
“There’s a real likelihood that they not only win the House, but they win it by 10 or 12 more seats than they need,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., voicing publicly what many Republican offi- cials have begun to acknowl- edge privately this summer.
In Kansas, Republicans faced uncertainty Wednesday not only about their candidate for governor this fall, but also whether they were creating a political opportunity for Democrats to win the office in November. Should the party ultimately nominate Kris Kobach, its hardright candidate for governor, it could also undermine Republicans in congressional races down ballot.
With all precincts report- ing in Kansas shortly before 9 a.m. Wednesday, Kobach, the secretary of state, was ahead of Gov. Jeff Colyer by just 191 votes out of more than 311,000 Republican ballots cast state- wide. The results were likely to remain in flux for at least several days with an unknown number of mail-in ballots not yet counted, a full canvass of all votes still to come and the possibility of a recount looming.
As the state’s top election official, Kobach would be in charge of overseeing the canvass if he does not recuse himself.
President Donald Trump had endorsed Kobach the day before the primary, hoping to help his close ally over the finish line and extend his own victory streak of presidential endorsements in competitive Republican primaries. Some Republican leaders were frus- trated with Trump’s endorsement of Kobach, a hard-line conservative, because they saw Colyer as a stronger can- didate in the November general election.
The winner of the Kansas Republican primary will face state Sen. Laura Kelly, the Democratic nominee, and Greg Orman, a businessman running as an independent.
And in another race where Republicans could be vulnerable in November, Sharice Davids, a lawyer who is Native American, won the Democratic congressional primary Tuesday in a swing district that surrounds Kansas City. She will face Rep. Kevin Yoder in the general election. It is one of two Republican-held districts in the state, along with a more rural open seat next door, where Democrats are threatening to shave down the House majority.
In Democratic primaries across the Midwest on Tuesday, the party’s ascendant left proved unable to match some of its recent success. In the Michigan governor’s race and in Davids’ race, candidates running with the support of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive upstart from New York, both fell short. And in Missouri, a Democrat who challenged veteran Rep. William Lacy Clay from the left, and enjoyed the support of Ocasio-Cortez, was soundly defeated.