Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) will face Milton Wolf in Tuesday’s primary. (Flickr/U.S. Department of Agriculture)

In Kansas, two primary challengers are gaining more traction than expected as outside groups uproot the Sunflower State’s playing field. In the Senate race, three-term Republican incumbent Pat Roberts saw a minor challenge from radiologist Milton Wolf turn into a real threat after Roberts admitted that he spends little time in his home state.

Meanwhile, former Rep. Todd Tiahrt is seeking to regain his old seat in the 4th District by accusing the incumbent, fellow Republican Mike Pompeo, of being beholden to outside interests. As it turns out, both challengers have benefited from outside groups swooping into the race to support their bid or attack their opponent.

Keeping up with the Kochs

In the state’s 4th District, which encompasses Koch Industries’ base in Wichita, the billionaire brothers have thrown their support behind incumbent Pompeo and shunned former protégé Tiahrt. But in recent weeks, Tiahrt has been aided by outside groups intent on defeating Pompeo. A former Boeing executive, Pompeo first took the seat in 2010 with Tiahrt’s blessing and the support of his predecessor’s longtime political patrons: Koch Industries. All told, Pompeo’s campaign and leadership PAC have together received more than $300,000 from Koch employees and KochPAC. In just two terms, in other words, Koch has given him close to 80 percent of the amount it gave Tiahrt over his eight-term career in Congress.

Given that the Koch brothers have influenced both candidates’ careers, it is curious that Tiahrt and Pompeo have chosen to accuse each other of being Washington insiders. In reality, both campaign are largely funded by in-state donors — including, in Tiahrt’s case, the candidate himself, since his $51,000 contribution to his own campaign accounts for about a third of the total he reported raising through July 16th. Pompeo’s re-election bid has collected $115,000 from Koch Industries — five times more than he received from his next biggest contributor, USAA. Pompeo has a solid advantage in resources, having raised more than $2 million for this race, while his opponent has run a shoestring campaign on $155,000.

The incumbent Pompeo also has the backing of the conservative dark money machine. Americans For Prosperity and Club For Growth, which are both Koch-linked groups, have weighed in heavily in the race. Americans for Prosperity spent close to $410,000 supporting Pompeo, who has a 100 percent AFP scorecard rating. Meanwhile, Club For Growth’s PAC helped route close to $70,000 in individual contributions to Pompeo’s campaign.

Among his local supporters, Tiahrt can count Kansans for Responsible Government, a single-candidate super PAC which runs almost entirely on donations from Willis Hartman. A local oil magnate, Hartman gave $216,000 to the group, single-handedly out-raising Tiahrt’s entire campaign and drawing suspicion from Pompeo’s allies. In June, Jane Deterding, a Pompeo backer and the chairman of the board for Citizens Bank of Kansas, filed a Federal Election Commission complaint accusing Hartman’s group of coordinating with Tiahrt, which is illegal for a super PAC.

Two other groups also parachuted into the race unexpectedly, providing a helping hand to the challenger. Every Voice Action, a group that advocates for publicly-funded political campaigns, oddly decided to zero in on this race, running several ads against Pompeo — and, according to FactCheck.org, making some misleading statements related to the congressman’s support for investing Social Security taxes. In the very last week, Food Policy Action also spent $40,000 to attack Pompeo for a bill he introduced in April to prohibit state-imposed labeling requirements of GMOs. Both groups have focused all their spending this cycle on this single race. This smattering of outside spending will probably turn out to be too little, too late, however. Tiahrt trailed Pompeo by seven points in a late July poll by KSN News.

The Recliner Incumbent

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In the Kansas Senate race, Roberts was long expected to steamroll his challenger, radiologist Milton Wolf. But he made a novice’s mistake when he admitted that his claim to a Kansas home was crashing on a friend’s couch for $300 a month. Challenger Milton Wolf jumped on these comments to depict him as a Washington insider. Yet the numbers show that in terms of funding, it’s not clear who is from Kansas and who is from Washington.

Roberts admitted to The New York Times in February that he had registered a new address in Kansas to dodge accusations that he had no home there. But he conceded that the new arrangement involved sleeping on a friend’s reclining chair for $300 a month. The friend in question, C. Duane Ross, said he couldn’t remember the last time Roberts had stayed over.

Meanwhile, Wolf (a second cousin of President Obama) has seen his share of controversy. After donning a doctor’s white coat and authoritative aura in many of his campaign videos, he suffered a backlash when it emerged he had posted graphic x-ray images and mocked gunshot victims on Facebook.

Certainly, Roberts, who has raised $4.7 million, is relying heavily on his Washington friends. As during his last re-election bid in 2008, Roberts’ Republican colleagues are pitching in to protect the veteran senator. In both races, he received more than $300,000 from leadership PACs. Overall, out-of-state donors account for 57 percent of individual contributions to his campaign.

For Wolf, however, out-of-state gifts constitute 78 percent of his haul. Wolf’s No. 1 donor, the anti-establishment Senate Conservatives Fund, has given his campaign $63,000, more than six times as much as his second biggest donor, Fruit of the Earth.

The race is also drawing huge amounts of outside spending, mostly to the benefit of Wolf. Senate Conservatives Action and the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund all chipped in on his behalf, spending about $500,000, $110,000 and $90,000 respectively. Roberts drew more modest support from outside groups, including the American Hospital Association, which spent $210,000, the American College of Radiology, with $100,000, and the National Rifle Association, with $28,000.

Both primaries will take place on Tuesday, August 5.

Follow Lalita on Twitter at @lalitaclozel



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