Jason Kander sends former campaign manager to run field office in Iowa

Jason Kander is sending his former campaign manager to Iowa, the state that holds the first presidential caucus, to run a field office for his national voting rights organization.

Kander, a Kansas City Democrat and former Missouri secretary of state, has been floated as a possible candidate for president in 2020 after his narrow defeat against Republican U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt in a state that went strongly for President Donald Trump.

Let America Vote, a national voting rights group Kander launched this year, announced this week plans to open field offices in five states, including Iowa and New Hampshire, two states that play a key role in the nomination process.

Kander said in a news release that opening these offices is a “direct response to efforts by politicians to make voting harder and their re-election campaigns easier.”

Abe Rakov, Kander’s former campaign manager, will head the office in Des Moines. He did not answer a phone call Friday or an email about whether the decision to send him to Iowa should be interpreted as a sign of Kander’s future ambitions.

A spokesman for Let America Vote pointed to the Facebook post Rakov had written Friday.

“It’s been fun, DC! But for the third time, I’m leaving you. As we announced yesterday, Let America Vote is expanding into 5 states — Nevada, Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee and New Hampshire,” Rakov said. “There are a ton of important races in all those states that I am excited to work on. To help me do that, I’m moving to Des Moines at the end of the month to be more centrally located as we take our work across the country. Come visit — I have a spare room!”

This story was originally published September 1, 2017 at 2:54 PM with the headline "Jason Kander sends former campaign manager to run field office in Iowa."