Trump says Pompeo would ‘win in a landslide’ if he ran for Senate

President Trump on Friday said that he thought Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would “win in a landslide” if he ran for Senate amid speculation that Pompeo could launch a bid in Kansas. 

“Mike has done an incredible job,” Trump said in a “Fox & Friends” interview Friday of Pompeo’s tenure as in the administration.”He’s an incredible guy doing a great job in a very complicated world, doing a great job as secretary of State.”

Trump added, however, that if Pompeo thought there was a chance that Republicans would lose the 2020 Senate race in Kansas, he would run. 

“Mike would win easily in Kansas,” the president said. “He came to me and said ‘Look, I’d rather stay where I am,’ but he loves Kansas, he loves the people of Kansas. If he thought there was a chance of losing that seat, I think he would do that and he would win in a landslide.”

Pompeo has repeatedly said that his focus is being Trump’s secretary of State when asked whether he would run for Senate, but he does frequent interviews with Kansas state media and visited the state last month. 

A number of candidates, including failed gubernatorial candidate and immigration hard-liner Kris Kobach, have already entered the race to replace retiring Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts (R). 

Kobach lost his gubernatorial bid in 2018 to Democrat Laura Kelly. Trump handily won the state in the 2016 election, beating rival Hillary Clinton by 20.5 percentage points. 

The Kansas City Star’s editorial board recently wrote an op-ed saying that Pompeo should either declare his Senate candidacy or focus on his “day job.”