TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Rival Kansas Senate candidates Kris Kobach and Rep. Roger Marshall have talked to President Donald Trump, with Marshall looking to boost his chances of defeating Trumps earliest prominent supporter in the state.
Marshalls campaign confirmed that the western Kansas congressman met Monday with Trump in the Oval Office. His campaign said in a statement Tuesday only that, It was a positive meeting.
Kobach told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Trump called him Monday from Air Force One to talk to him about the Senate race and immigration issues. Kobach has advised Trump regularly about immigration issues since Trumps campaign for president in 2016.
A White House official also said both conversations occurred, though the official said Kobach reached Trump by phone. Marshall also met with the presidents political team last week.
Kobach said he doesnt read too much into Marshalls meeting with the president.
Marshall votes almost all the time with Trump in Congress and has been a vocal critic of the impeachment proceedings against Trump. However, Kobach publicly endorsed Trump ahead of Kansas 2016 presidential caucuses well before any other top-level state officials and served as vice-chairman of a short-lived presidential commission on election fraud.
I speak with the president more frequently than I speak with anyone else in the White House, Kobach said. I assume that Marshall is hoping that the president endorses him or at least doesnt endorse me, but I dont read anything beyond that.
Trump endorsed Kobach the day before the 2018 GOP primary in the Kansas governors race, and Kobach narrowly defeated then-Gov. Jeff Colyer. But Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, has built a national profile by advocating stricter immigration policies, and he alienates many moderate voters. He lost the governors race to Democrat Laura Kelly.
Trump has told advisers that he likes Kobach but is aware of his liabilities, according to an administration official not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations. Trump and Kobach are aligned on hard-line immigration policies. The president had not yet determined how involved he will be in the primary race.
Kobach and Marshall are running for the seat held by four-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, who is not seeking re-election. Some Republicans fear that if Kobach is nominated, Democrats will have an opening to win their first Senate race in Kansas since 1932, putting a normally safe seat in play.
The leading Democratic candidate, state Sen. Barbara Bollier, a retired Kansas City-area anesthesiologist, has said she raised more than $1 million by the end of last year, a sizeable sum in a low-cost media state like Kansas.
Other GOP candidates in the race include Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle and Dave Lindstrom, a Kansas City-area businessman and former Kansas City Chiefs football player.
Kobachs and Marshalls conversations with Trump occurred the same day Kansas political icon and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the 1996 GOP nominee for president, endorsed Marshall. Dole praised Marshall as dedicated to preserving common-sense Kansas values.
Two GOP operatives said they believed Dole was acting as a free agent and said his endorsement was not a signal that national Republicans were preparing to line up behind Marshall. They said party leaders were still evaluating the GOPs primary field, including watching fundraising. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
One GOP strategist said Republicans in Washington are still deciding which candidate to back, examining such things as their fundraising and the excitement they generate among voters. The operative, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the thinking of leading Republicans, said Kobachs loss in the governors race and current polling is disqualifying for his candidacy.
The operative said theyre open to Marshall or other candidates already in or not in the race. The operative also said that while some Republicans still nurture hopes and dreams that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former Kansas congressman, will reconsider not running, his decision seems pretty definitive.
