Moderate Republicans were making the Kansas primary a referendum on the state’s budget problems and education funding as they tried Tuesday to oust conservative incumbents.
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His contentious race against Roger Marshall, a Great Bend obstetrician, in the 1st District was the state’s marquee congressional primary – and perhaps its most notable partisan contest of the year.
Pretty soundly. When the Associated Press called the race with 72 percent of precincts reporting, Marshall had 57 percent of the vote to Huelskamp’s 43 percent.
U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp answers questions from the media following his primary election watch party held at the Atrium Hotel and Conference Center on Tuesday evening, August 2, 2016, in Hutchinson, Kan.
Huelskamp, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, responded by helping to orchestrate Boehner’s ouster from the speakership previous year. But this year, major agriculture groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed Marshall.
“I think he has a better record than what he is given credit for”, said Doris O’Neal, a 76-year-old Hutchinson homemaker who voted for Huelskamp.
Roger Marshall, says that wouldn’t happen, and that’s why groups like the Kansas Farm Bureau are supporting him. ABC notes that Huelskamp is only the fourth incumbent legislator to lose a primary. North Carolina Rep. Renee Ellmers faced a largely new district but also heavy conservative spending against her to become the first incumbent casualty of 2016. His district lines were redrawn to include Fort Riley and Kansas State University, bringing voters who “are not as libertarian on economic issues nor as socially conservative as those who live in the west”. Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., was defeated in April after indictment on federal corruption charges.
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.
Republican voters in the deep red state of Kansas have given U.S. Sen.
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U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder also is expected to score a big victory over his Republican primary opponent, retired Army officer Greg Goode, of Louisburg, in the Kansas City-area 3rd District. U.S. Reps. Lynn Jenkins in the 2nd District of eastern Kansas and Mike Pompeo in the 4th District of south-central Kansas had no opponents in their Republican primaries.
