Scramble for the Senate: Democrats delight in forcing Republicans to play defense in Kansas

As the Unit­ed States grinds towards the Novem­ber gen­er­al elec­tion, it is becom­ing increas­ing­ly clear to polit­i­cal experts that Repub­li­can chances of hold­ing on to the White House, or win­ning the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, are rapid­ly vanishing.

Nation­wide, Don­ald Trump is ten points behind Joe Biden and Biden main­tains a com­fort­able lead in all the key swing states.

Mean­while, esti­mates of the gener­ic House bal­lot show that Democ­rats have been ahead of the Repub­li­cans by around nine points for months.

The only ques­tion remain­ing for many Repub­li­can lead­ers – par­tic­u­lar­ly Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell – is whether the par­ty will be able to hold onto their major­i­ty in the U.S. Sen­ate. If the Democ­rats flip the Sen­ate in Novem­ber, they would con­trol all three branch­es of gov­ern­ment for the first time in a decade – and it could spell the end of the Repub­li­can Par­ty as we know it.

As things stand, the Democ­rats need to win four seats to flip the Sen­ate (or three seats, with Biden’s Vice Pres­i­dent act­ing as a tie-breaker).

They are cur­rent­ly giv­ing the Repub­li­cans heart­burn in a num­ber of races, most promi­nent­ly Ari­zona, Col­orado, Maine, and North Car­oli­na.

Both par­ties are pour­ing vast sums of cash into these races, but the Repub­li­cans are fac­ing a drain on their cof­fers from an unex­pect­ed source – the deep, deep red state of Kansas. Kansas is a citadel of Repub­li­can­ism and has not elect­ed a Demo­c­rat to the Sen­ate since the 1930s. In 2016, Don­ald Trump won the Sun­flower State eas­i­ly, beat­ing Hillary Clin­ton by twen­ty points.

How­ev­er, the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s grip on Kansas’ Sen­ate seat has been thrown into doubt by the retire­ment of Sen­a­tor Pat Roberts and the can­di­da­cy of a con­tro­ver­sial fig­ure: Kris Kobach. Kobach has spent his career whip­ping up con­tro­ver­sy both inside and out­side his state for his extreme­ly xeno­pho­bic views and his will­ing­ness to use his pow­er to enact that ideology.

In the ear­ly 2000s, Kobach trav­elled the coun­try help­ing local author­i­ties to set up uncon­sti­tu­tion­al pro­grams to tar­get immi­grants. In 2010, he became Kansas’ Sec­re­tary of State and spent eight years in office dream­ing up ways to attack minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties. Dur­ing the time he was respon­si­ble for run­ning state elec­tions, vot­er turnout dropped by over 100,000.

Kobach has glee­ful­ly described him­self as “the ACLU’s worst night­mare” – inad­ver­tent­ly (or per­haps not) com­par­ing him­self to orga­ni­za­tions such as the Klu Klux Klan and the Amer­i­can Nazi Par­ty that the ACLU has famous­ly confronted.

After two terms as Sec­re­tary of State, 2018 seemed set to be the biggest year of Kobach’s life. He was cho­sen by Trump to co-chair a nation­al inves­ti­ga­tion into so-called “vot­er fraud” and ran for gov­er­nor with the President’s endorsement.

But it all went wrong. His com­mis­sion was unable to present any evi­dence of vot­er fraud, and was dis­band­ed. While he whit­tled away his guber­na­to­r­i­al run chas­ing after phan­tom ille­gal vot­ers (and dis­en­fran­chis­ing a lot of legit­i­mate vot­ers along the way) his Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent, Lau­ra Kel­ly, ripped into the incum­bent Repub­li­can admin­is­tra­tion of which Kobach was part for dis­as­trous trick­le-down eco­nom­ic poli­cies that had ruined the state’s finances.

In Novem­ber, Lau­ra Kel­ly won by a com­fort­able mar­gin, humil­i­at­ing both Kobach and his par­ty in a state that should have been an easy win for them.

Many in the Repub­li­can lead­er­ship learned the les­son and swore nev­er to run such an incom­pe­tent, divi­sive can­di­date ever again.

Kobach had oth­er ideas. His entry into the race for the U.S. Sen­ate has thrown the Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry into tur­moil. The party’s estab­lish­ment has put their thumb on the scale in favor of State Sen­a­tor Roger Mar­shall, a reli­able fundrais­er who is deeply con­ser­v­a­tive and loy­al to Trump.

Kobach has sought to por­tray Mar­shall as a tool of insid­i­ous Wash­ing­ton D.C. inter­ests. Mar­shall hasn’t been helped by the fact that he is def­i­nite­ly the establishment’s sec­ond choice; Mitch McConnell spent almost a year unsuc­cess­ful­ly try­ing to per­suade U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mike Pom­peo to enter the race before back­ing Marshall’s candidacy.

In nor­mal cir­cum­stances, the back­ing of the Repub­li­can estab­lish­ment would be enough to put Kobach back in his box – the for­mer Sec­re­tary of State now has a record as a los­er in a state where Repub­li­cans almost nev­er lose, and is not the best at fundrais­ing – but a vari­ety of fac­tors have com­pli­cat­ed the situation.

Kobach has received large dona­tions from groups with Demo­c­ra­t­ic links, who are try­ing to set Kobach up to be a more beat­able gen­er­al elec­tion candidate.

On the oth­er side of the polit­i­cal spec­trum, the Sil­i­con Val­ley bil­lion­aire (and pur­vey­or of dystopi­an sur­veil­lance sys­tems) Peter Thiel has thrown hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars at Kobach’s cam­paign, inspired their shared views on immi­gra­tion (Thiel, him­self a Ger­man immi­grant, is a “pull-up-the-ladder-after-you’ve-climbed-it” kind of guy) and a mutu­al friend­ship with the gen­uine­ly evil Ann Coul­ter. There are also a num­ber of oth­er can­di­dates in the mix, includ­ing a self-fund­ing mil­lion­aire and a for­mer Kansas City Chiefs foot­ball player.

All this con­fu­sion – made worse by a lack of reli­able polling – means that the nation­al Repub­li­can Par­ty and the groups affil­i­at­ed with it are being forced to pour resources into a state that should be safe for them.

Unlike the can­di­dates in the messy Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry, Demo­c­rat Bar­bara Bol­lier has an easy ride. The State Sen­a­tor is the only Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date run­ning for the seat, allow­ing her to hoard cam­paign dona­tions for the gen­er­al elec­tion while her Repub­li­can rivals blow their funds attack­ing each other.

As a result, she is cur­rent­ly beat­ing the Repub­li­cans in fundraising.

Bol­lier is not a can­di­date who will excite pro­gres­sives. In 2010, she was elect­ed to the state House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as a Repub­li­can, and stayed with the Repub­li­cans until 2018, when she dra­mat­i­cal­ly announced she would cross the aisle to the Democ­rats. Her stat­ed rea­sons for leav­ing her par­ty were Trump’s lack of lead­er­ship and the Kansas Repub­li­cans’ oppo­si­tion to LGBT+ rights.

That leaves open the ques­tion why she didn’t leave in 2017, when Trump praised neo-Nazis and insti­tut­ed sys­tem­at­ic child abuse on the U.S.–Mexico border.

The tim­ing of her switch – just a month after the midterms, where Democ­rats swept through sub­ur­ban dis­tricts like hers – offers a more plau­si­ble rea­son for Bollier’s deci­sion: she saw which way the polit­i­cal winds were blowing.

Bollier’s asser­tion as she changed par­ties that the Repub­li­can was “hell bent on remov­ing mod­er­ates” sug­gests that her ide­ol­o­gy remains pret­ty much unchanged, and that all that’s changed is the let­ter next to her name. Rein­forc­ing that idea is the fact that she has promised to avoid vot­ing along par­ty lines – mean­ing that even if she wins, the Democ­rats can hard­ly rely on her dur­ing close votes.

Bol­lier faces steep odds in this elec­tion, regard­less of how the Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry turns out. In a year when Don­ald Trump tops the bal­lot and is run­ning ahead of Joe Biden by dou­ble dig­its (accord­ing to research by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling, NPI’s poll­ster), elect­ing a Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date to the Sen­ate will be difficult.

Nev­er­the­less, pro­gres­sives can take plea­sure in the unusu­al sit­u­a­tion unfold­ing in the Sun­flower State. The more Repub­li­cans are forced to invest in a state they ought to be dom­i­nat­ing, the less resources they have to throw against bet­ter Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates in more uncer­tain races.