Kansas Senate Seat May Be Up for Grabs

“It has been 88 years since Kansas last sent a Democrat to the United States Senate — one of only three Democrats ever to represent the state in the upper chamber. But this year, in a challenging and unstable political environment for Republicans, party leaders are growing fearful that this reliably Republican stronghold will instead become an expensive, high-stakes battleground that could determine the balance of power in Washington,” the New York Times reports.

“Ahead of the August primary, Democrats have largely rallied around Barbara Bollier, a retired anesthesiologist who was until recently a Republican. Republicans, meanwhile, are locked in an intraparty competition that has all of the trappings of a full-out brawl: attack ads, bitter recriminations between the candidates and a party chair who tried to intervene and sparked backlash. At the center of the fireworks is Kris W. Kobach, a hard-line Trump supporter who has been an incendiary presence in Kansas politics for years.”