Conservative PAC pushes back on Pompeo with poll showing Kobach competitive in 2020
A newly formed conservative PAC has released a poll showing Kris Kobach in a dead heat with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a potential GOP primary.
The group released the poll in an attempt to refute the notion that Kansas’ open Senate seat is Pompeo’s for the taking in 2020.
It shows Kobach at 25.8 percent and Pompeo at 25.5 percent in a five-way GOP primary. A plurality of 29.8 percent is undecided, while the rest are split between other candidates, including Rep. Roger Marshall, according to the survey.
The poll was paid for by the Free Forever PAC, formed in October to support candidates in favor of limited government, originalist judges, secure borders and economic policies that benefit the working class, according to chairman Ryan Girdusky.
The PAC’s views line up closely with President Donald Trump’s agenda. Girdusky is publisher of a “Nationalist-Populist” newsletter and the former New York correspondent for OANN, a pro-Trump TV news channel.
Kobach said in a statement that he takes Pompeo “at his word that he intends to stay at the State Department. But this poll shows that if he does return to Kansas to run for the Senate, it will be a tight race all the way to the end.”
National Republicans have repeatedly warned that Democrats could win a Senate seat in Kansas for the first time since 1932 if Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state who lost the 2018 race for governor, is the party’s nominee.
An internal October National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) poll, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, showed that the bulk of Kobach’s supporters would move to Pompeo if he entered the race.
The PAC’s poll results are based on a survey of 563 likely GOP primary voters from Dec. 3 to Dec. 11. It was conducted by the Trafalgar Group, a Georgia-based firm which is considered Republican-leaning.
Respondents were overwhelmingly white— 94.9 percent— and 63.7 percent were over the age of 50, according to data Girdusky released.
The PAC’s creation hints that a contingent of wealthy donors could be steering money into the race to back Kobach regardless of whether Pompeo runs.
Billionaire Peter Thiel hosted a fundraiser for Kobach in September and is expected to continue supporting Kobach’s candidacy through either a super PAC or independent expenditure group.
When asked directly whether the Silicon Valley billionaire had donated to the group, Girdusky said “possibly.”
The PAC’s donors will become public when it reports its finances to the Federal Election Commission early next year.
Girdusky said he released the poll “just to have more facts out there,” contending that leaked polls from the have created a narrative that the race would be a “coronation” for Pompeo if he entered.
“The only poll taken in the Senate race was the NRSC poll,” Girdusky said, noting the NRSC, the party’s main campaign arm for Senate races, is publicly opposed to Kobach’s candidacy.
The NRSC declined to comment on Free Forever PAC’s poll.
Publicly, Pompeo has repeatedly downplayed his interest in the race, but multiple trips to Kansas this year, creation of a new personal Twitter account and his Tuesday meeting with Kansas Farm Bureau officials in Washington all point to an eventual candidacy.
