Campaign Diaries

He had been expected to do so for the past few months, and he jumped in yesterday: Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt announced his candidacy for Kansas’s Senate race. (Sam Brownback is retiring, leaving his seat open for the taking.)

Tiahrt’s statewide candidacy gives us our fifth open seat in the House - and perhaps the most intriguing to date. Based around Wichita, KS-04 is staunchly conservative; George W. Bush won with 64% of the vote in 2004 and where McCain crushed Obama 58% to 40% this past fall. Accordingly, the Republican nominee will be heavily favored to hold on to this seat, and the GOP is likely to have plenty of candidates looking to get a promotion to Washington. Potential contenders include White House Political Affairs Director Matt Schlapp, State Sen. Susan Wagle, State Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt.

That said, the district has been known to elect Democrats - until the 1994 red tsunami, in fact, when Tiahrt  unexpectedly defeated Rep. Glickman. Furthermore, Democrats have somewhat of a bench in KS-04. Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and state Sen. Raj Goyl (who comfortably upset a Republican incumbent in 2006 in a red-leaning area) would be very credible candidates if the DCCC can recruit them.

Naturally, Tiahrt’s decision is most important in regards to the Senate race.

Awaiting him in the Republican primary is fellow congressmen Jerry Moran, who was first elected to the House in 1996 and who announced his candidacy in late 2008. While Moran is considered the slight favorite, their contest is likely to be stay very heated all the way until Kansas’s August primary.

The problem for the GOP is that Kansas is one state in which a competitive primary could really hurt their chances.

Kansas Republicans have long been engaged in an ideological civil war, with conservative and centrist less conservative factions warring over the control of the party. A number of politicians from the moderate faction have switched parties over the years, and this has helped the Democratic Party stay alive in a state in which it might have had a very difficult time otherwise.

While Moran and Tiahrt are both reliable conservative with little policy disagreements to differentiate them, their opposition could fit in that narrative of a warring state party. Moran bridges the two factions, satisfying conservatives and moderates alike since the time he was one of the leaders of the state GOP (he served as the state Senate’s Majority Leader in the early 1990s). That might be good enough for Republicans if it were not for the fact that Tiahrt is known as a movement conservative, closer to the profile of base activists, with a social conservative profile and ties to pro-life groups.

First, this means that Tiahrt’s camp is likely to try to make this primary into an ideological battle, and that is a recipe for a bruising contest. Second, this could lead to general election troubles for the eventual nominee: If Tiahrt reignites the party’s civil war and then goes on to win the primary, moderate Republican voters could stay away from the polls or even back the Demoratic nominee.

All of this will only matter, of course, if Democrats can field a credible candidate. The big - the huge - question mark remains whether Governor Kathleen Sebelius will jump in the race. If she does, Kansas will host one of the most important Senate battles of the cycle - and how bruising the GOP primary becomes will certailny matter. If she does not, it remains difficult to see what other Democrat could mount a strong run - and the GOP primary could then very well look like a general election.