KS-Sen: Taylor drops out

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

With this development, I am shifting the race into the toss-up column.

Go Orman!

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

With this development, I am shifting the race into the toss-up column.

Go Orman!

Yet you have Kansas as Safe R, despite Brownback not leading in a single non-YouGov poll since April (or since January if you exclude Rassy as well)

I don't normally permit myself to change safe ratings (I launched my ratings in January, back before anyone was even thinking about Brownback being in danger), though if that race still looks the way it does now a month from now, I will make an exception.

This (and the AK Gov race, which is also getting a substantial downgrade) are special cases because they changed from republican vs. democrat to republican vs. independent, so have essentially become different races, so that is why, in this case, I have made an exception to my rule against changing Safe Ratings (which I have so that 'Safe' doesn't seem like another way of saying 'Strong Lean') .

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Kansas doesn't seem like the kind of state that has a sizable contingent of "reflexively Democratic" voters. They tend to have a fairly high level of voter participation, which likely means they're relatively informed voters relative to the country as a whole.

If Texas Democrats nominated a dead man, he'd predictably lose but he'd still win the Rio Grande Valley in a landslide. If Alabama Democrats did the same, the voters in the Black Belt would pick the corpse over the Republican. Kansas doesn't really have any Democratic voters like that.

Or sometimes the dead man wins statewide

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Missouri,_2000

Well, it was made clear who the replacement would be. Voters knew they were technically voting for Carnahan's Wife and not the late Carnahan himself, so it wasn't exactly 'voting for a dead man'.

In any case, Taylor will be challenging the decision: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/election/article1504835.html

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

But even if Taylor manages to get his vote share down to say, 5-6% or so, that's votes that Orman can't get. Roberts can breathe a little easier with Taylor's name on the ballot than he can without it being there.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I think blaming the Kansas SOS here is wrong. If the KS election law explicitely says that you can only step down as candidate by notifying the SOS that you are unable to serve if elected, then Krobach is only acting according to the law. It's his job.

You should rather expect the Taylor campaign to be smart enough to know the election law and they should have put the "unable to serve" thing into his letter.

Except the letter Taylor wrote was written with the assistance of the Secretary of State's office, implying the Secretary of State knowingly deceived the Taylor campaign.

Its much more likely that they consulted some mid-level bureaucrat in the office who got it wrong. I very much doubt the secretary himself was involved in the decision in any way.

Well, in that case the Taylor campaign should just send a 2nd letter to Kobach's desk with the "unable to serve after elected" thing in it and Kobach needs to accept (unless he's willing to be OK with his incompetent staff that doesn't know the election law of the state).

A good point indeed.
Just because it was not the SOS himself, any "mid-level bureaucrat"

It wasn't just some mid-level bureaucrat, it was the assistant secretary of state himself, Brad Bryant.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Any thoughts on the fact in the event of a tied Senate, Orman would have to be known as the guy who (by appearances) single-handedly throws the Senate to the Democrats if he caucuses with them? That would presumably make for an effective attack ad come the 2020 election and might dissuade him now. Then again, it's tempered by the fact it's six years later (meaning voters might care less and also Orman might willingly make that sacrifice in exchange for supporting the party he presumably wants to).

If he was the deciding vote for Democrats, he might follow through on his pledge to not vote for Reid (and maybe get King to join him). He'd probably make up for giving Dems the Senate by also being known as the guy that ousted Reid for someone like McCaskill or Heitkamp

I wonder if McCaskill or Heitkamp would even want the job. It would certainly make their re elections more difficult.

You're right. Kirsten Gillibrand would be the perfect choice. There's not even a 0.01% possibility that she wouldn't get reelected, even if she were majority leader, and I think she's pretty centrist/moderate.

Gillibrand is among the most liberal in the democratic caucus...

Some safe senators near the middle of the caucus include Leahy, Feinstein, Carper, and Tom Udall.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Does anyone know when we will hear the final Kansas Supreme Court ruling on Taylor on/off the ballot ??

If you do hear the ruling from the court, please post in this thread ASAP.
Thanks.

Either Tomorrow or Thursday. Apparently, if the court rules in favor of DavisTaylor, Kobach is going to try to force the courts to force the democratic party to name a replacement. Just more proof that Kobach is doing everything with Robert's best interests in mind. If the democrats name Orman as their replacement, they'd make him a weaker candidate in the process, and if they name some random unknown democrat he'd probably reach double digits even if he went around telling people not to vote for him because he hasn't technically 'dropped out', taking votes away from Orman.


Hopefully Kobach will find himself defeated in November.

Edited due to wrong candidate name. I suppose this is what I get for typing this at 11:38 at night.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

How exactly could Kobach "force" Democrats to select a replacement? If they decide not to, there's nothing he can do about it. Or perhaps the Democrats could select Kobach, Roberts, Brownback, or Yoder?

Could they choose someone who legally changes their name to "Dont Vote For Me"? LOL.

LOL, yeah, exactly. If the partisan hack Kobach wants to play games with the law, Democrats can play that game as well.

That would be funny. Now the question would be who would be willing to do that - change your name from now until November to 'Don't Vote For Me".

How exactly could Kobach "force" Democrats to select a replacement? If they decide not to, there's nothing he can do about it. Or perhaps the Democrats could select Kobach, Roberts, Brownback, or Yoder?

Basically, his plan is to sue the democratic party and hope the courts rule the right way....

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

No ruling just yet....

Will there also be a view on whether Kobach can force the Democrats to nominate another candidate? The state party has said even if they were ordered to do so, there just isn't time.

That wasn't argued over at all on Tuesday, so the court probably won't issue anything on it, but don't rule it out.

Also, does anyone know if Kobach could declare an 'emergency delay' on the printing deadline in order to allow time to attempt to get a second court ruling demanding the democrats to choose a replacement?

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

This is what the judges in Kansas are doing right now - probably best not to disturb them, might make them angry enough to rule in Kobach's favor...

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

"In response to the ruling, Kobach said a separate statute protects the “rights of Kansas Democrats” to have a replacement candidate. He said he would move the mailing date for absentee ballots to Sept. 27 and that the chair of the Democratic Party has been informed she has eight days to select a replacement candidate."

Loser.

Well, time to find someone non-republican named Pat Roberts.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

What do you expect when your campaign is run by the visionary team of political veterans responsible for such campaigns as Linda McMahon 2012, Karen Handel 2014, Ken Cuccinelli 2013, and Brian Dubie 2010?

To be fair, Brian Dubie actually didn't do too bad, considering he only lost by 1.8% in an ultra-liberal state. Also, Cuccinelli and McMahon lost because they're bad candidates, not because they had bad campaign managers.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Democrats don't need put a replacement candidate on the ballot.

I just love the Kansas Judicial System