Organs of the Republican Party establishment, particularly the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), are growing increasingly concerned that the Trump wave in 2020 could usher ‘America First’ candidates into the Senate.
They intend to put considerable resources toward stopping the upstart Senate campaigns of Kris Kobach in Kansas and Judge Roy Moore in Alabama. Kobach has been shut out of the Trump administration after losing a bid for Kansas governor last year, and Moore’s U.S. Senate chances were torpedoed in 2017 after being accused without evidence of sexual improprieties with minors.
“We don’t need to be having any problems, it’s not a state we can stumble in. The map for the majority is OK, but if you have to start diverting resources to Kansas it complicates things,” a GOP establishment operative told The Hill.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is attempting to recruit Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has given many ‘Never Trumpers’ prominent roles in the State Department, to run for U.S. Senate in Kansas to stop Kobach.
“I’m not sure the president agrees with this, that I’d love to see the secretary of State run for the Senate in Kansas. But the filing deadline is not until next June,” McConnell said.
Retiring Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KA), who Kobach is attempting to replace, is also casting doubt on his efforts.
“It seems to me that if you have just lost a statewide race that the chances of you winning, running again for another statewide race would be very difficult,” Roberts said. “Kris Kobach, once he makes up his mind, makes up his mind.”
McConnell has laughed Moore’s campaign off, saying that Alabamians have “seen quite enough of Roy Moore.” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) is looking into finding more establishment-friendly candidates to run for the seat against Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), the pro-abortion seat filler who defeated Moore in a 2017 special election.
“He’s damaged,” Shelby said of Moore. “He wouldn’t be good for Alabama.”
Moore is hoping that the circus surrounding the Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh last year, where the political establishment failed in its attempt to destroy his reputation with false sexual assault accusations, will be a game changer for his race in 2020.
“They don’t want me to take our conservative values to D.C., and they’ll do anything to stop us – including smearing me and all of Alabama with all kinds of falsehoods,” Moore wrote in a recent fundraising e-mail.
It will be an uphill battle for Moore, Kobach, or any immigration patriot to make their way to Washington D.C. in 2020, thanks to the efforts of the GOP establishment putting millions of dollars toward protecting the swamp and containing the Trump phenomenon.