Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said Wednesday he “wouldn’t be surprised” if Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decided to run for Senate next year in Kansas.
“I’ve had conversations with Secretary Pompeo. Certainly the conversations have revolved in part about this issue,” Moran told local reporters, according to Fox 4. “They’ve been weeks ago now and I don’t know what his current thinking is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he entered that race.”
{mosads}“I think that he would be a good, solid candidate that would get a lot of support in Kansas,” Moran added.
Pompeo said in July that a Senate run in 2020 is “off the table,” but speculation has persisted that he might still run for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.).
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has previously indicated that Pompeo would be his top choice to run for the seat, arguing that his resume and proximity to President Trump would make him a strong candidate.
Many Republicans worry that the possible nomination of former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a conservative firebrand who has staked out hard-line positions on immigration and election fraud, could jeopardize the party’s chances of keeping the seat in the GOP column next year after he lost the governor’s race last year to a Democrat.
“If it’s Kobach, hell yes, that’s a major race,” a veteran GOP operative with deep ties to Kansas told The Hill earlier this year.
If Pompeo were to jump into the race, he would likely enter as the GOP’s presumptive nominee and help curtail Democrats’ hopes of winning a Senate seat in the Sunflower State for the first time since 1932.
Democrats had hoped to enlist former Health and Human Services secretary and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, arguably the most popular Democrat in the state, to run for Roberts’s seat. However, she said in July she will not be a candidate in the race.