By David Yee
We like to believe that money isn’t everything when it comes to match-ups in the general election, but in reality it can be a pretty good indicator of who will be the last ones standing come November 4.
The U.S. Senate race in Kansas is grabbing national attention as independent candidate Greg Orman gains serious ground on the major party candidates.
Kansas has been considered a safe, solid-red state since Senator George McGill (D) lost his re-election bid in 1938. What is unusual about the 2014 race is that incumbent Pat Roberts (R) is locked in an unusually bitter primary struggle against tea party favorite Dr. Milton Wolf. Both are well-funded and eager to fight it out until the primary election in August.
The probable Democratic contender, Chad Taylor, is unlikely to be a major player in the outcome of this year’s election. Taylor’s most recent FEC quarterly report showed his campaign with only $10,000 of cash on hand — which is not going to pay for much campaigning. It seems as though the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) had written off Kansas as “lost” before the race even started.
Greg Orman is showing fantastic fundraising ability — raising $600,000 in only 6 weeks without the benefit of PAC money (the Orman campaign is not accepting PAC money) or personal loans from Orman.
Read the full article here.
http://www.ballot-access.org/2014/07/poll-for-u-s-senate-race-in-kansas/
On July 25, SurveyUSA released a poll for the U.S. Senate race in Kansas. The results: Republican incumbent Pat Roberts 38%; Democrat Chad Taylor 33%; independent Greg Orman 14%; Libertarian Randall Batson 4%; undecided 11%. See here for more detail.
http://ksn.com/2014/07/24/ksn-news-poll-shows-kansas-senate-race-heating-up/
The Kansas primary is August 5, and both Roberts and Taylor have primary opponents. Nevertheless, they are very likely to be nominated.
Orman has raised approximately $600,000, a higher amount than anyone else running outside the two major parties for Congress this year, except for Marianne Williamson, the California independent for U.S. House who is being kept out of the general election due to the top-two system.