President Donald Trump made a Twitter appeal for Kansas Republican Ron Estes on Tuesday.
"I'm glad to welcome Ron Estes to the 115th Congress and I look forward to working with him to solve the challenges facing our country", House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement released Tuesday evening.
Democrats are hopeful Ossoff has a chance to pull off a victory, considering the results of a special election in the deep-red state of Kansas on Tuesday where James Thompson came close to beating Republican Ron Estes.
On Monday, Estes had another influential GOP name stumping for him - Texas Sen.
"Republican Ron Estes needs your vote and needs it badly", Trump said in his minute-long call.
The April 11 election in Kansas's fourth congressional district has drawn about $500,000 in total campaign spending, including about $200,000 in last-minute money from Republican groups, according to reports on independent campaign expenditures filed with the Federal Election Commission. It's important to note that local politics mattered in this race.
Kansas 4th District congressional candidate Ron Estes, front left, thanks Sen.
In the last three congressional elections, Democratic challengers attracted only about 30 percent of the vote against Mike Pompeo. The result was far smaller gap than the lead Trump and former Rep. Mike Pompeo, who is now Trump's Central Intelligence Agency director, had in the 2016 election. Thompson narrowly carried Sedgwick County, but Estes won all the other counties in the district.
Trump reverses many positions since taking office
President Trump's on-the-job training is exposing how much he didn't know when he was running for the nation's highest office. And it is something that he pointed out in the debate, the first debate in September of a year ago .
That said, the results in Kansas serve as a reminder to the political world that, as things stand, the GOP is facing serious headwinds - and they have no idea how to improve their standing.
Estes is the state treasurer.
And while the district typically has twice as many registered Republicans as Democrats, the early vote split 44.5 percent Democratic and 43.5 percent Republican, one GOP pollster told CNN - a usual signpost of a heavily energized base.
"This election, this special election tomorrow, makes a difference".
"This is the easiest election I've ever had", said Pawnee County Clerk Ruth Searight.
"We now have a good sense of energy that's out there in terms of how it actually translates at the ballot box", Kelly said. Included among them was Belle Plaine homemaker Charlene Health, 52, who cast her vote for Estes.
Thomas Hauser, a 67-year-old Belle Plaine resident and traditionally a Republican says he voted for Democrat James Thompson on Tuesday, in part because they share a military background. Republicans are aiming to keep Ossoff below the majority required to win outright, forcing a two-person runoff - basically a Republican v. Democrat general election - on June 20.
Thompson spokesman Chris Pumpelly said Estes' victory required recorded calls from Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and other help from Republicans nationally. Brownback, one of the least popular governors in the USA, may have been more effective for Democrats in this race than anything Trump has said or done so far in his administration. Aside from the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, congressional Republicans have very little to take to their voters as proof that they have delivered.
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