Mike Pompeo not running for Senate seat held by Jerry Moran

Rep. Mike Pompeo has decided against mounting a bid to challenge incumbent Sen. Jerry Moran and will instead seek to retain his seat in the U.S. House.

Pompeo announced his decision in an e-mail to supporters Monday morning.

“I will, today, file for re-election to the House of Representatives and seek to continue to represent the people of Kansas Fourth Congressional District with my full energy and commitment,” Pompeo said. “ I will ask for your vote and humbly respect the decision that Kansans make about whether I’ve lived up to the promises I have made to each of you.”

So far only one candidate, Wichita attorney Dan Giroux, has announced that he will run against Pompeo for the 4th District seat. Giroux is a Democrat, so he and Pompeo wouldn’t face each other on a ballot until the Nov. 8 general election.

Giroux said in an e-mail that “Pompeo has been a disappointment as a congressman, and south central Kansas would have fallen even further behind in jobs and business opportunities had he become our Senator.”

Pompeo’s announcement ends weeks of speculation that he might challenge Moran, a fellow Republican, in the August primary. Pompeo had repeatedly attacked Moran in recent weeks as being insufficiently conservative in his approach to the open seat on the Supreme Court, vacated by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Even in his announcement that he would not seek the Senate seat, Pompeo took jabs at Moran over his statements made last month – which have since been recanted – that he would be open to holding hearings on appellate court Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the vacant seat.

Senate Republican leaders have vowed not to allow consideration of any nominee put forth by President Obama.

“I started exploring a potential run for the United States Senate for this same reason: conflicting messages were sent about considering President Obama’s liberal Supreme Court nominee that would change the court for the worse for decades to come,” Pompeo said. “The next generation deserves better... The Senate cannot fold again on this one. As I watched this waffling up close, I began to contemplate a Senate run.”

Moran said in an e-mailed statement that he looks forward to “working with Congressman Pompeo and the entire Kansas Congressional Delegation to improve our state and nation for the next generation.”

Russell Fox, a political scientist at Friends University, doubted that Pompeo would have been able to beat Moran in the primary.

“Were a few verbal gaffes like that really going to be enough for him to build a primary challenge?” Fox said, referring to the controversy over Moran’s Supreme Court comments. “It just wasn’t there.”

Fox said that Pompeo’s main ambition in attacking Moran may have been to build statewide name recognition for future races. The governor’s office will be up for election in 2018 and the state’s other U.S. Senate seat will be up for election in 2020.

“It would not surprise me at all if these rumors were floated from the very beginning just to increase his profile, that he wasn’t really seriously testing the waters at all,” Fox said. “It was just a way to remind people that not only is he doing work that some people like in Washington, but that he’s got ambitions to build upon that.”

Bob Beatty, a political scientist at Washburn University, said he thinks that Pompeo was serious about the possibility of challenging Moran, but that those other opportunities may have been more enticing.

He noted that if Pompeo had run for the Senate, then the race to replace him in the House would have likely been competitive as well. “The sound you hear is the weeping of the TV stations because of the millions of dollars in TV ads that will not be run,” Beatty said.

Shortly after Pompeo announced that he’ll seek to stay in the House, state Treasurer Ron Estes announced he will end his bid for the congressional seat.

Estes, a former Sedgwick County Treasurer, formed an exploratory committee last week for the 4th District race, against the possibility of an open seat if Pompeo had decided to challenge Moran for the Senate.

On Monday, Estes said he had decided before forming his committee that he wouldn’t challenge Pompeo in a Republican primary.

“I told him I wasn’t going to run against him,” Estes said. “I wish Mike well in his re-election bid.”

Estes would have had a free shot at running for congressional office without risking his current job, because state treasurer won’t be on the ballot this year. Estes’ current term expires in 2018.

This story was originally published April 25, 2016 at 10:29 AM with the headline "Mike Pompeo not running for Senate seat held by Jerry Moran."