Kansas voters just handed Republican Kris Kobach a devastating rebuke. The man who came to national prominence as President Trump’s hand-picked hatchet man to lead his failed voter suppression committee has fallen to Democrat Laura Kelly – and it wasn’t even close.
With 75% of precincts reporting, Kelly held a decisive 9 percentage point lead, more than enough for the race to be called.
NBC News: Laura Kelly projected winner in Kansas governor. Kris Kobach goes down.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 7, 2018
Kobach is an Ivy League-educated lawyer who’s been a particularly ideological culture warrior on the Right for some time. He’s been advising Republican-controlled state houses on how to enact legislation to suppress minority votes – and he’s been very effective, particularly from his perch as the Secretary of State in Kansas.
Trump tapped him to lead his so-called ‘Voter Fraud’ commission in 2017, but was forced to abandon that role earlier this year when the committee disbanded. State attorneys general resisted Kobach’s draconian efforts to hijack voter rolls and effectively bring elections under the control of the White House, and when that failed Kobach returned to Kansas in disgrace.
Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, the ambitious Kobach now faces a defeat so severe that it could end his political career for the foreseeable future. If a Republican can’t win state-wide election in Kansas, what use is he?
