Democrat issues statement saying his campaign to replace Republican Pat Roberts in US Senate is ‘terminated’

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Chad Taylor, the Democrat challenging three-term Republican US Senator Pat Roberts, has ended his campaign without apparent explanation.

Taylor sent a letter to the Kansas secretary of state withdrawing from the race, which also has a viable independent candidate, Olathe businessman Greg Orman, as well as a Libertarian candidate, Randall Batson, of Wichita.

Taylor issued a separate statement saying he made the decision after consulting with his staff, supporters and Democratic party leaders. He did not give a reason.

“Effective today my campaign is terminated,” he said. Originally the statement said “suspended,” but the word was crossed out and replaced with a handwritten “terminated”.

Kansas Democratic party officials were not saying how they planned to respond to Taylor’s withdrawal.

Secretary of state Kris Kobach, a Republican and former law professor, said his initial reading of state election laws was that they required the party to pick a new nominee. But he said he would consult with his legal staff on Thursday.

Roberts’s executive campaign manager, Leroy Towns, called the move a “corrupt bargain” between Democratic leaders and Orman’s campaign. Both the Taylor and Orman camps declined to comment beyond written statements.

Taylor is the district attorney in Shawnee county, home of the state capital, Topeka. He won the office in 2008 and was re-elected without opposition in 2012. Orman had positioned himself as a non-partisan centrist — and as Roberts’s most formidable opponent in the 4 November election.

Orman issued a statement on Wednesday calling Taylor “a committed public servant.”

Campaign finance records show Taylor raised about $163,000 in contributions from November through July, while Orman took in more than $670,000 after starting his campaign in May. Roberts raised about $3.4m from the beginning of last year through July but he had a tough primary race against Tea Party challenger Milton Wolf.

Roberts remains favored to win the race in GOP-leaning Kansas, though he received just 48% of the vote in his primary race against Wolf and two lesser-known candidates. Republicans have won every US Senate contest since 1932 and they enjoy a nearly 20 percentage point advantage among the state’s 1.74 million registered voters.

Roberts has since sought to unify Republicans by appealing to their frustrations with Barack Obama and the Democratic US Senate majority leader Harry Reid.