ELECTION/GOP/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Donald Trump endorsed Kris Kobach ahead of Tuesday’s [8-7-18] Kansas Republican gubernatorial primary. The endorsement doesn’t come as a surprise, but should Kobach win, it could cost the Republican Party a governor’s seat in deep red Kansas. Why? To start, Kobach, who is Kansas’ secretary of state, is mired in controversy. He served as vice chairman of Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was set up after the President repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims that widespread voter fraud occurred in the 2016 election. The group’s supposed aim was to investigate voter fraud, but it never presented any evidence to support the President’s claims. It was eventually shutdown. Last week, a former member of the panel, Maine’s Democratic secretary of state Matthew Dunlap, wrote a letter to Vice President Mike Pence and Kobach saying he had “reviewed the Commission documents made available to me and they do not contain evidence of widespread voter fraud.” ProPublica and the Kansas City Star have also reported that Kobach sold himself as an attorney who would write laws aimed at combating illegal immigration for towns and defended them in court for a substantial fee. Many of those of municipalities lost in court, but Kobach made off with a lot of money, according to the reports. Kobach has disputed some of the characterizations in the article.”
–Harry Enten, “Trump’s Kobach endorsement could cost the GOP a governor’s race in red Kansas,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, August 6, 2018 4:01 pm