Kobach secures GOP nomination in hotly contested Kansas governor’s race

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a staunch ally of President Trump, has secured the GOP nomination for Kansas governor after his rival conceded Tuesday night following a hotly contested Republican primary.

The state’s sitting governor, Jeff Colyer, conceded to his hard-line conservative rival a week after the race remained too close to call with all precincts reporting before counting provisional ballots.

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Colyer served less than a year in office after ascending to the governorship when his predecessor Sam Brownback (R) left to take an ambassadorship in the Trump administration. 

Trump may have delivered the fatal blow to Colyer’s hopes of serving a full term, with the president endorsing Kobach in a tweet just a day before the Kansas primary last week.

Kobach had served as vice chairman of the president’s election integrity commission, which failed to come up with evidence to back up Trump’s false claim that millions of illegal voters had cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election.

In his own press conference Tuesday, Kobach credited Trump for his win.

“There’s no question that the election day voting went much more strongly for me as compared to the advance voting,” Kobach said, according to The Kansas City Star.

Kobach will now face state Sen. Laura Kelly (D), who easily won her primary last Tuesday, in the November general election. 

Though national Republicans warned the White House that Kobach was a weaker general election contender than Colyer, Kobach’s path is likely to be smoother because of an independent candidate.

That independent, businessman Greg Orman, ran a strong campaign against Sen. Pat Roberts (R) in 2014, a sign that he is likely to pull votes from one of the two major candidates later this year.