A new Super PAC, run by a former aide to Congressman Kevin Yoder, has launched a new $3 million ad campaign against Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kris Kobach.
The Plains PAC’s ad, which started running Tuesday morning on television, radio and digital, emphasizes Kobach’s loss in the 2018 governor’s race and his connections to white nationalists.
“Kris Kobach gave Kansans the most liberal governor in our history,” said Plains PAC Executive Director C.J. Grover, who just left Monday as spokesman for Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
“Kansas Republicans support President Trump and his positive vision for America, but not Kobach’s consistent affiliation with a toxic ideology explicitly rejected by the president and Kansans of all stripes,” he said.
“Plains PAC’s mission is to remind primary voters why a vote for Kobach is too big a risk for our future.”
The ad focused on a Kansas City Star story from last year that reported that Kobach’s Senate campaign paid $500 to a field coordinator “who regularly posted hateful comments about Jews and racial minorities on a white nationalist website.”
The Kobach campaign issued a response to the new ad campaign, criticizing U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and establishment Republicans for going after him.
“Kris Kobach doesn’t have ties to white nationalists, and he never has,” said Kobach spokeswoman Danedri Herbert.
“We are disappointed that McConnell’s establishment attack dogs are peddling misinformation to damage the front-runner in the Republican primary.”
Herbert said the Kobach campaign ended its relationship with the “independent contractor” after it discovered he posted statements supporting “that garbage.”
However, this is the most recent time that Kobach has been dogged about his personal associations, something that began as early as 2004 when he ran for Congress against Dennis Moore in the 3rd District.
When he was vetted by President Donald Trump’s administration to be Homeland Security, it was noted that past political opponents “had accused Kobach of allying himself with groups that had connections to white supremacist groups.”
The entrance of the Plains PAC gives Senate hopeful Roger Marshall a new ally in the Senate race after his nemesis, Club for Growth, dropped a television ad campaign against the congressman.
It also gives Marshall, who has already raised far more money than Kobach, more firepower going into the last weeks of the primary campaign.
Last week, businessman and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Hamilton fired up two ads against Marshall, one zeroing in on a 2008 reckless driving case and another on immigration.
Kobach and Marshall are battling for the GOP nomination along with Hamilton, former Johnson County Commissioner David Lindstrom and seven other lesser-known candidates in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.
