KS Republican attorney general candidates spar over who can win as Kobach seeks comeback

Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach faced repeated attacks over his previous election losses on Thursday in the first debate in the Kansas Republican attorney general’s race, which centered on who can ensure a GOP victory in November.

State Sen. Kellie Warren, who chairs the Kansas Senate Judiciary Committee, repeatedly said the party needs a conservative nominee who can win the general election and drew attention to Kobach’s courtroom defeat defending Kansas’ proof of citizenship voter registration law. At the same time, Tony Mattivi, a former federal prosecutor, sought to contrast himself with both Kobach and Warren, arguing they are career politicians while he is a career prosecutor.

Kobach lost the 2018 race for Kansas governor to Democrat Laura Kelly and two years later lost the Republican primary for U.S. Senate to Roger Marshall.

But the former Kansas secretary of state dismissed these recent losses, noting that he was the only candidate in the race who had previously won a statewide election. He dismissed Warren’s campaign experience, saying “winning a tiny little Johnson County Senate district or House district, that’s not like running a statewide election.”

The Pittsburg debate between the three Republican candidates, sponsored by several area Republican groups, marked an unofficial kick off to the summer campaign season in the race to succeed Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, a Republican who has held the office for more than a decade and who is now running for governor. The candidates took generally the same policy positions, agreeing that government overreach is rampant, the Biden administration is a disaster and illegal immigration represents a grave threat.

But each sought to outmaneuver the others on questions of experience and competence. Whoever wins the August primary will likely face Democrat Chris Mann, a former police officer and prosecutor in the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office.

“We have a candidate in the race who has already lost a statewide election to the left,” Warren said of Kobach.

Of Mattivi, she said the race is “too important to risk with a candidate who says they’re conservative but we don’t know. How can we know? Untested in the court of public opinion.”

Kobach emphasized his early support of former President Donald Trump in 2016 and how he went on to informally advise Trump on immigration. Explaining his 2018 loss, he said it was a wave election for Democrats.

“Experience does count and let me tell you, running statewide there are a lot of things you learn on the trail. I have learned them and I know how to win statewide and we will win statewide,” Kobach said.

Mattivi, who previously worked in the Kansas Attorney General’s Office but spent 22 years as a federal prosecutor, noted that he is the only candidate who has previously worked in the office he’s seeking to lead. He stressed the attorney general’s role as the state’s chief law enforcement officer.

Mattivi also warned of what can go wrong when someone without prosecutorial experience is attorney general. In recent decades, Mattivi said, every Kansas attorney general has either previously worked as a prosecutor, been a judge or worked in the Attorney General’s Office. The only exception, he said, was Phill Kline, the Republican attorney general from 2003 to 2007.

“And we know how well that turned out for us as Republicans,” Mattivi said. “A scandal-plagued administration that ended up with him losing the job to a Democrat after his first term.”

Kline’s Kansas law license has been suspended since 2013, stemming from his investigation into Kansas abortion providers after he was elected attorney general.

While Kobach has not worked in the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, he had limited prosecutorial authority as secretary of state to pursue voter fraud crimes. During the debate, Kobach promised he would aggressively prosecute any election crimes as attorney general.