Will Kobach on ballot rally GOP base for Yoder or drag him down in race with Davids?
A few weeks before he captured the GOP nomination for governor, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach tore into congressional Republicans for advancing a Democratic proposal to widen the asylum program to cover migrants fleeing domestic abuse and gang violence.
“For some reason, when it comes to immigration, congressional Republicans routinely lose their ability to reason coherently and fall all over themselves to demonstrate how ‘compassionate’ they can be,” Kobach wrote in a July column for the conservative website Breitbart.
Kobach didn’t mention by name the man who many on the right were castigating for the move: U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder, a fellow Kansas Republican facing a tough re-election fight against Democrat Sharice Davids in a district that Hillary Clinton narrowly won in 2016.
“Secretary Kobach is 100 percent behind Congressman Yoder and the rest of the Republican congressional delegation,” Kobach campaign manager J.R. Claeys said when asked whether the gubernatorial nominee had policy clashes with the incumbent congressman.
Claeys, a state representative from Salina, said Kobach likely will share the stage with the GOP congressional candidates if President Donald Trump and other administration officials come to Kansas to campaign on Kobach’s behalf.
Claeys predicted that “having Kris Kobach on the top of the ticket is helpful for a majority of Republicans out there because he does pull out the base. … Our base is going to be excited and they’re going to be engaged this election cycle.”
Democrats, however, think Kobach will be a drag on Yoder based on internal polls that show him to be unpopular in Kansas’ 3rd congressional district.
“The electoral backlash from the Brownback nightmare is a glimpse into what Kansas Republicans are facing with Kris Kobach at the top of the ticket. Kevin Yoder’s failure to carve out an independent brand will be a huge liability among suburban voters this fall, especially when he’s in the pocket of President Trump and special interests,” Rachel Irwin, the spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an email, referring to former Gov. Sam Brownback.
Kobach had a 34 percent approval rating in the district, according to a survey of 400 likely voters conducted Aug. 13-15 by Global Strategy Group on behalf of the Davids campaign. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
The same internal poll gave Davids a margin-of-error lead over Yoder, 46 percent to 43 percent.
Patrick Miller, a political scientist at the University of Kansas, said Kobach’s efforts to tout Trump on the campaign trail could have an adverse effect in the Kansas City suburbs.
“Yoder probably doesn’t want that. … Trump showing up in the 3rd is probably the last thing Yoder needs at this point,” Miller said.
Travis Smith, a Kansas City-based GOP consultant, pushed back on the notion that Kobach will be a drag on Republican candidates.
He cited a statewide survey done by Remington Research Group for GOP legislative candidates that showed GOP voters about as excited as Democratic voters three months ahead of the general election.
“The alleged ‘enthusiasm gap’ is not showing itself in data,” Smith said in an email. “And if there were a base issue for Republicans to contend with, Kobach is undoubtedly a great motivator. Reminder to Democrats salivating: Trump won the state of Kansas by 20 points, nearly a quarter million votes. Typically the state trends even more right-ward in mid terms. That’s a big hole to climb out of.”
Yoder spokesman C.J. Grover said in a statement that Yoder “supports Republican candidates up and down the ticket” without mentioning Kobach by name.
He then launched into an attack on Yoder’s Democratic opponent, suggesting that Yoder’s campaign will lean into the immigration issue as the November general election approaches.
“Sharice Davids and other Democrats have fully embraced radical ideas like socialized medicine, doubling or tripling federal taxes to grow government, and abolishing immigration enforcement agencies. We need to elect candidates across the board who want to keep our economy strong and our communities safe,” Grover said Tuesday morning.
Hours later, Yoder’s campaign launched a new television and web ad decrying Davids as “the most radical nominee for Congress in Kansas history” on the basis of the claim that she supports abolishing U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement.
The campaign’s source on that is a July post from the Millennial Politics blog that states Davids supports abolishing ICE. The post does not feature any quotes from Davids.
Davids stopped short of calling for the agency’s abolition in a statement to The Star ahead of the primary, but she also said the push to eliminate the agency “stems from a very real problem and very real pain being inflicted by this agency.”
Her campaign gave a similar response Tuesday when asked about Yoder’s ad.
“Our immigration system is broken because both parties in D.C. have failed to fix the problem. Sharice does not support abolishing ICE. She does, though, think ripping kids away from their parents is wrong. She also believes people who have served this country in the military alongside her mother should be able to gain citizenship,” said Davids spokeswoman Allison Teixeira Sulier.
“Instead of playing politics with the issue, Congressman Yoder should focus on a solution that fixes the problem for the future without tearing families apart today. Sharice supports a bipartisan, comprehensive plan to finally fix our immigration system.”
An ad released by Davids’ campaign the same day as Yoder’s ad focused on her biography rather than policy positions. It emphasized her background as the daughter of a single mother who served in the Army at Fort Leavenworth.
Kobach’s spot at the top of the GOP ticket ensures that the issues of immigration and border security will be at the forefront this campaign season in Kansas.
He’s made the issue a cornerstone of his campaign for governor with promises to pursue immigration enforcement through state law enforcement and to eliminate in-state tuition at Kansas colleges for people who came to the state illegally.
“As far as immigration is concerned, you know where Secretary Kobach stands on that and, yes, I imagine that we will continue to talk about it through the general,” Claeys said.
Kobach, whose political rise coincided with his legal work on the issue, advised Trump on immigration during the 2016 campaign.
His advocacy on the issue could motivate the GOP base to show up at the polls in November, but it could also increase scrutiny on Yoder, who chairs the Homeland Security budget subcommittee.
Yoder faced an onslaught of criticism from conservative pundits after the Democratic asylum proposal was added to the Homeland Security budget bill with his support. He promised to work with the Trump administration to fix the policy.
It was a controversy that encapsulated Yoder’s efforts to appease both sides on the contentious issue of immigration.
“I think we need to enforce our borders, but I think we can do it humanely,” Yoder told The Star in early July, three weeks before the uproar over the asylum legislation. “And I think there is an obvious clear pathway here where we enforce the law and we do it compassionately. I think that’s the middle ground.”
Despite the controversy last month, immigration remains an issue that Yoder will likely push on the campaign trail, as demonstrated by his attack ad. Nationally, Miller said, many GOP campaigns are playing up the immigration issue ahead of the midterms.
He said Democrats tend to be much more ambivalent about the issue.
“It’s not an issue that a Democrat like Sharice Davids would probably talk about to motivate their own side. ... It’s definitely something that if I were in Yoder’s shoes, I’d be talking about right now to motivate my base,” he said.
Besides, Yoder’s chairmanship means he will be “stuck talking about the issue whether he likes it or not,” Miller said.
This story was originally published August 22, 2018 at 5:30 AM.