Pompeo, under fire in Ukraine inquiry, still seen as GOP savior in Kansas Senate race
Despite damaging testimony and scorching criticism of his leadership of the State Department, national Republicans have not let up in their efforts to recruit Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for the 2020 Kansas Senate race.
Pompeo was on the July 25 phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky that is at the center of the House impeachment inquiry. Current and former State Department officials have testified that they became alarmed at Trump’s attempt to make military aid to Ukraine contingent on Zelensky announcing an investigation into a possible 2020 opponent, former Vice-President Joe Biden.
Pompeo has forcefully defended Trump’s call.
Republicans tasked with keeping the party’s majority in the U.S. Senate still see Pompeo as their best option in the open-seat race to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Pat Roberts.
At a “Save the Senate” event on Nov. 8 at Trump International Hotel in Washington, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) executive director Kevin McLaughlin told a room full of lawmakers, lobbyists, and GOP donors to call Pompeo and urge him to run, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the plea.
The gathering took place just weeks after the NRSC, the party’s main campaign arm for Senate races, met with Republican Rep. Roger Marshall, the western Kansas congressman pursuing the seat. Marshall leads all current candidates in fundraising by about $1 million.
“I think they certainly understand that we’re the frontrunner and I feel like we’re getting a lot of good support from them right now,” Marshall said Tuesday when asked about the October meeting.
Political, not personal?
Marshall added that while he was unaware of McLaughlin’s pitch for Pompeo, questions about the secretary’s possible candidacy are old news.
“I just think that issue has died down tremendously from three months and other than what you’re just reporting on I haven’t heard much from anybody else,” he said
“Where can they spend the least amount of money is probably what they’re thinking about,” Marshall said, when asked if the persistent interest in Pompeo reflected a lack of confidence in his campaign. “And I think the big numbers that we put up... and just the machine that we put together across the state, that we have their confidence now.”
Marshall said he also met in October with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, who he described as encouraging.
The congressman said the race for the nomination is between him and former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the party’s failed 2018 nominee for governor.
However, some national Republicans worry that if Pompeo ultimately decides to sit out the race, Kobach will emerge the nominee.
A source familiar with the continuing recruitment effort said it is intended not as a personal slight to Marshall, but a political calculation. Pompeo is seen as the party’s best shot at beating Kobach in the primary and outperforming Democrats in the general election, the source said.
Pompeo is seen as having the best chance, the person said, because he has national name ID and is a close associate of the president. He’s been in Trump’s Cabinet since the week he took office and would likely have the personal support of the president.
Trump’s last-minute endorsement of Kobach before the primary election helped Kobach narrowly win the nomination for governor last year.
The NRSC panned Kobach when he announced his candidacy in June, saying it would “simultaneously put President Trump’s presidency and Senate Majority at risk.”
GOP establishment ‘afraid’ of Kobach
Kobach’s campaign manager Steve Drake said Tuesday that establishment Republicans’ fears about Kobach are related to illegal immigration, the issue around which Kobach has framed his campaign and much of his public life.
“Many in the establishment are afraid of a conservative who poses a serious threat to illegal immigration. They want a continuing supply of cheap, illegal labor. Others in the establishment want a Senator they think they can control,” Drake said in a statement.
Pompeo’s multiple trips to Kansas since Roberts announced his retirement have fueled speculation that he could be laying the groundwork for a campaign, even though he has repeatedly downplayed his interest in public statements.
“I’ve answered this question. I think this is number 103 or 104 times,” Pompeo told The Wichita Eagle last month when asked about his potential Senate candidacy during a visit to Wichita.
McLaughlin’s comments about Pompeo at the November event may have come as a surprise to Marshall, but Rep. Ron Estes, R-Kansas, said he’s aware of McConnell’s and the NRSC’s continued efforts to put Pompeo into the race.
“Until Mike says for sure he’s out or not, the NRSC’s looking at he’d be their No. 1 pick if he’s in the race,” Estes said. “I think it’s a matter if you look at who is the best candidate you can get—and obviously, Mike’s doing a great job as secretary of state and would be a great senator as well.”
Estes said he does not think Pompeo has been damaged politically by the testimony of State Department officials, a notion he dismissed as a media narrative.
“Not from a standpoint of being elected to senator,” Estes said. “I think what we’re seeing in the impeachment process is that media’s kind of playing up that Mike’s being damaged from the comments from the some of the folks from the State Department.”
Pompeo has faced an onslaught of criticism for his reluctance to defend career diplomats called as witnesses against attacks from the president.
In a Monday column, The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman accused Pompeo of cowardice for his failure to protest the ouster of Marie Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine earlier this year.
“Pompeo has just violated one of the cardinal rules of American military ethics and command: You look out for your soldiers, you don’t leave your wounded on the battlefield and you certainly don’t stand mute when you know a junior officer is being railroaded by a more senior commander, if not outright shot in her back,” Friedman wrote.
Pompeo brushed off questions about the impeachment inquiry during a Monday news conference.
“I’m not going to get into the issues surrounding the Democrat impeachment inquiry. I’m just not going to do it today. It is worth noting that Ambassador Yovanovitch’s departure preceded the arrival of Bill Taylor,” Pompeo told reporters. “So some – there’s some ideas out there that somehow this change was designed to enable some nefarious purpose; you should all just look at the simple fact that it was Bill Taylor that replaced Ambassador Yovanovitch.”
Taylor was one of the first State Department aides to testify publicly. Additional diplomats will undergo questioning this week.
Pompeo playing ‘dodgeball’
While the inquiry has begun to damage Pompeo’s public image nationally it has done little to dissuade Republicans that he remains their best option in the Kansas race.
Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, has also been encouraging Pompeo to run for Senate in 2020.
The two men were first elected to the U.S. House in 2010 and were recently spotted having lunch together in the member’s dining room on Capitol Hill as rumors about Pompeo’s political future were beginning to circulate.
Last week, the evening before Pompeo was scheduled to deliver Veterans Day remarks at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., Scott told McClatchy he hosted Pompeo for dinner with 25-30 influential South Carolinians, including Republican Gov. Henry McMaster.
Scott said politics came up, as well as questions about Pompeo’s political future.
“I did ask a question about his political future,” Scott recalled, “and he was smart enough to play dodgeball and dodge the question.”
Lauren Passalacqua, spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said the NRSC’s effort to recruit Pompeo demonstrates a lack of confidence in the current field of candidates, which could be a liability for the eventual Republican nominee.
The DSCC has endorsed state Sen. Barbara Bollier, a Johnson County lawmaker who switched parties last year. A Democrat hasn’t won a Senate race in Kansas since 1932, but both parties are treating the state as more competitive this cycle than in other recent elections.
In addition to Marshall, the NRSC has sat down in recent months with Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle and former Johnson County Commissioner Dave Lindstrom. The organization has not met with Kobach.
Wagle’s campaign did not comment directly on the NRSC’s efforts to recruit Pompeo, but instead took a shot at Kobach for losing the gubernatorial race.
Kansas Board of Education Member Steve Roberts launched a campaign this month. A handful of other potential candidates, including Kobach’s 2018 running mate Wink Hartman, are also still weighing the race. Kansas’ filing deadline is not until June 1.
American Conservative Union chair Matt Schlapp, a Wichita native who currently lives in Virginia, has said he’s open to the possibility. But Schlapp signaled in a recent interview with The Kansas City Star that he’s leaning against it.
Roberts, who has stayed neutral in the primary race so far, participated in the NRSC’s “Save the Senate” event. The 83-year-old incumbent joked about mounting another campaign.
Roberts recounted to The Star that he told attendees about how his wife recently had to help him remove his shoes because he’s been suffering from back problems. He recalled her telling him that “if this is what retirement is going to look like, why don’t you just go ahead and run again.”
McClatchy’s Emma Dumain contributed to this report.
This story was originally published November 19, 2019 at 5:33 PM with the headline "Pompeo, under fire in Ukraine inquiry, still seen as GOP savior in Kansas Senate race."
