GOP strategist: ‘The way things are headed, we would lose the House’

In last night’s special election in Kansas’s 4th congressional district – a deeply red region – the Republican candidate, Ron Estes, eked out a victory over Democrat James Thompson to claim Mike Pompeo’s seat, which the former representative vacated to head up the Central Intelligence Agency under President Donald Trump. But even if the Republican nominee, Ron Estes, wins, he’ll have only barely defeated a candidate in a heavily Republican district. Pompeo cruised to re-election in November with 61 percent of the vote.

However, the close margin in Tuesday’s race could hamper Republican efforts to recruit candidates, according to Patrick Miller, a political science professor at the University of Kansas.

Republican John Estes single-digit victory over Democrat James Thompson came in a Kansas district that Trump won by a whopping 27 percent just five months ago. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also campaigned for Estes in Wichita.

A county-by-county breakdown of results is available at the Kansas secretary of state website.

Trump on Wednesday submitted a Tweet celebrating Estes’ victory.

One Republican House member who was granted anonymity to speak candidly on the special election told CNN that the outcome should be viewed as a warning.

Thompson has tapped into voter frustration with Brownback throughout the campaign, tying the state treasurer to the unpopular Republican governor. “For sure, I will have rural support”, she said she thought.

Gov. Brownback will appoint a replacement state treasurer as Estes heads to Washington, D.C. All statewide offices will be on the 2018 ballot.

The Kansas race had percolated under the radar for weeks, but tighter-than-expected polling prompted a last-minute flurry of activity as Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence recorded robocalls, and Sen.

That said, the results in Kansas serve as a reminder to the political world that, as things stand, the GOP is facing serious headwinds – and they have no idea how to improve their standing.

President Donald Trump says a “wonderful guy” is running for Congress whose help he needs to overhaul the health care and tax systems. The importance of their unabashedly progressive stances in red districts cannot be overstated-the fact that these progressive candidates can challenge Republican shoo-ins or even win in these races shows the sheer strength of the Trump resistance.

In a sign of nervousness in the waning days of the campaign, Republicans poured money into the race to bolster Estes. Democrats are trying to figure out how to reconnect with voters in the heartland. Pompeo won the state’s 4th District seat in 2010, when Tiahrt gave it up to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate.

In Cowley County, Estes received 3,179 votes or 56 percent of the vote to 2,422 votes or 43 percent for Thompson. Instead, he won by four points – and we should note that Kansas, which the press is now conveniently characterizing as terminally red, twice elected far-left Democrat Kathleen Sebelius as governor last decade.