POLITICS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A special election in Kansas Tuesday [4-11-17] has Republicans sounding worried about an enthusiasm gap in the Trump era.
Trump himself was apparently worried enough that he cut a robo call for Republican state party Treasurer Ron Estes.
‘On Tuesday, Republican Ron Estes needs your vote — and needs it badly,’ the president says in the recorded call intended to boost Estes in the race to replace Mike Pompeo, who is serving as Trump’s CIA director. ‘Ron is a conservative leader who’s going to work with me to make American great again. We’re going to do things really great for our country. Our country needs help; Ron is going to be helping us — big league. But I need Republicans like Ron Estes to help me get the job done. This is an important election. There’s really few very much more important. And I need your vote for Ron Estes on Tuesday.’
This is a heavily Republican district that includes Wichita. It’s one that Trump won by 27 points in 2016. But in a low turnout election, almost anything can happen.
‘Our enemy right now is complacency,’ said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who was campaigning in the fourth congressional district with Estes Monday, in an 11th hour attempt to boost the Republican over Democrat James Thompson, a civil-rights attorney. This district has voted Democratic before. Pompeo was swept in with the Republican wave of 2010. Democratic enthusiasm, Republicans’ lack of it and independents’ dissatisfaction with incumbent GOP Gov. Sam Brownback are all making for what could be a closer-than-expected result.”
-Domenico Montanaro, “A Special Election In Kansas Could Signal ‘Big League’ Problems For GOP, Trump,” NPR, April 11, 2017