Republican challenger Roger Marshall won the Republican primary, beating Tea Party-backed Congressman Tim Huelskamp.
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Huelscamp lost his race to obstetrician Roger Marshall, a man who falls into more traditional Republican party lines. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a member of the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus, lost to a political newcomer yesterday in the Republican primary for his Kansas district.
His vote against the GOP budget got him kicked off the Budget and Agriculture committees in 2012.
Folksy and irreverent, Huelskamp has been a tea party favorite inside and outside of Washington. Huelskamp was a strong critic of John Boehner and celebrated when the Ohio Republican was forced previous year to step down as U.S. House speaker. Clifton farmer and educator Alan LaPolice is poised to run as an independent. “If you listen for reasons he voted as he has, I think you will find he is doing the best he can for Kansas”. Two Republican representatives, Renee Ellmers of North Carolina and Randy Forbes of Virginia, were defeated due to redistricting.
The outgoing Huelskamp is an ideological conservative with a PhD in agricultural policy, and so he was against subsides whether they went to the poor or industry.
Huelskamp blamed his loss on $3 million of super PAC money coming to support his opponent. But this year, major agriculture groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed Marshall.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, issued a statement Wednesday decrying the result, saying Huelskamp has stood up for the values of those he represents and has consistently said “no to “business as usual” in Washington”.
While the campaigns of both men raised more than US$700,000 (RM2.8 million), interest groups spent more than US$2.7 million on the race, much of that benefiting Marshall, according to the AP. He was later convicted and quit Congress. But U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, the last 1st District representative, declined to say Tuesday who he would vote for.
Some of the same issues that LaPolice used against Huelskamp in 2014 ― voting against the farm bill in 2013, being too much of a rabble rouser in Congress to be effective for Kansas ― became issues in the 2016 race.
Conservative political action committees spent heavily this year to defeat Huelskamp in his primary and in support of his opponent, who was also backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
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