Trump’s ally wins GOP governor primary in Kansas

A staunch ally of President Donald Trump and a strong advocate of his policies has won the closely contested Republican nomination for the Kansas governor’s race.

Kris Kobach won the race on Tuesday after incumbent Governor Jeff Colyer ended his campaign to keep his job.

Kobach, whose win marks another successful endorsement for Trump, had received 128,543 votes, or 345 more votes than Colyer in the latest tally for the August 7 primary election.

“I’ve just had a conversation with the secretary of state and I congratulated him on his success and I repeated my determination to keep this seat in Republican hands,” Colyer said at a news conference.

“This election is probably the closest in America but the numbers are just not there, unless we were to go to extraordinary measures,” Colyer said.

In a statement, Kobach thanked his rival, saying, “I look forward to working with Gov. Colyer and all Republicans to keep Kansas red in November.”

Kobach had served as an adviser for Trump’s presidential campaign on immigration as well as vice chairman of the president’s short-lived voter fraud commission.

Trump has endorsed Kobach despite some Republicans in Washington telling him not to do so as they worried that a Kobach win could play into the hands of Democrats by keeping moderates away from the polls in a pair of competitive congressional races in Kansas.

Throughout the primary campaign, Kobach primarily focused on illegal immigration and frequently dropped Trump’s name in interviews, admiring the administration for its hard-line approach.

“That relationship with the president, mixed with a strong name identification and message on illegal immigration, definitely helped him,” said Neal Allen, chair of the political science department at Wichita State University. “It was almost like a perfect storm for him.”

However, Allen said that “a wave of Democratic money is headed to the state,” noting, “If Democrats can defeat Kobach, they defeat Trump as well.”

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