Kansas City Star
Moran beats Tiahrt in hard-fought race for Kansas’ Republican Senate nomination
Dave Helling and Steve Kraske
Jerry Moran held off a full-throttle challenge from Todd Tiahrt on Tuesday to win the bitter Republican nomination fight for Kansas’ Senate seat in a race tighter than polls had indicated.
The race remained too close to call throughout the night until returns from Moran’s home base in western Kansas thrust him into a commanding 15,000-vote lead. Moran lost GOP-rich Johnson County by four percentage points.
“They forgot to listen to us,” Moran said of the federal government. “It’s time for us to restore good common sense to Washington, D.C.”
An emotional Tiahrt conceded early today, telling supporters with a quiver in his voice that he loved them all.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get it to the finish line quite as good as we had hoped,” he said in Wichita.
Tiahrt said he planned to call Moran later in the night.
“I do not want a Democratic senator from Kansas,” he said.
He was not expected to attend a Kansas GOP unity breakfast this morning in Overland Park.
With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Moran of Hays had 157,054 votes to Tiahrt’s 142,509.
Moran will face little-known Democrat Lisa Johnston of Overland Park and two third-party candidates in November. A Democrat hasn’t won a Senate seat in Kansas since 1932.
In Moran’s brief victory speech around midnight, the tensions of the race remained evident. Moran never mentioned Tiahrt by name and did not refer to the hard-hitting campaign that had been waged against him.
“There are opportunities for us to try to make sure that there is no permanent division,” Moran told reporters. “Primaries within the family are a very difficult thing. It’s very challenging in these circumstances.
“(But) this is about tonight. It’s not about the campaign that’s in the past. We’re fine,” he said when asked about Tiahrt. “We’ll be fine.”
Johnston easily outpaced a five-candidate field with 31 percent backing with 97 percent of precincts reporting. She is an administrator at Baker University.
“It’s very important that we give voters a true choice in November,” Johnston said at an election party in Mission. “I am the candidate who can do it.”
Also on the ballot in November will be Reform Party nominee Joe Bellis and Libertarian Michael William Dann.
But the Republican is considered the overwhelming favorite to take the Senate seat being vacated by Sam Brownback, who won the GOP’s nomination for governor Tuesday. The Democratic losing streak in Kansas Senate races is the nation’s longest.
“The Senate seat is starting to take on mythical proportions for the Democrats,” said Bob Beatty, a political science professor at Washburn University in Topeka.
Both Moran and Tiahrt ran well-financed, high-exposure primary campaigns. The two Republicans spent more than $6.7 million combined through the middle of July, Federal Election Commission figures show.
Moran said he sat down with Tiahrt before the campaign began in an attempt to avoid negativity.
“I suggested that we remain friendly… to do everything we can to keep it on friendly terms,” Moran told the Wichita Eagle.
In a separate interview, Tiahrt said: “He never had that conversation with me. Maybe he dreamt it one night. He apparently forgot what he said in his dream because he has certainly run a negative campaign.”
Moran’s campaign sought to burnish his conservative credentials while maintaining a good relationship with his party’s moderate wing, particularly in Johnson County.
The candidate made numerous trips and campaign appearances in the 3rd Congressional District, where many Republicans thought the race would be won or lost.
Moran handily won in his 1st Congressional District in western and central Kansas, which he has represented since 1996. But he lost GOP-rich Johnson County by 49-45 percent, giving Tiahrt hope.
Moran was not afraid to attack his opponent in the race. In one TV ad and in televised debates he accused Tiahrt of supporting “amnesty for illegals” — based on Tiahrt’s co-sponsorship of bills that would have given protection from deportation to students in the United States illegally as well as help on college tuition costs.
Tiahrt later renounced his support for the measure.
For his campaign, Tiahrt hoped for help from the state’s tea party movement, as well as the more conservative wing of the GOP.
He was endorsed by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former White House adviser Karl Rove, Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity, conservative organizer Phyllis Schlafly and a host of other well-known conservative figures.
And he aggressively attacked Moran as a moderate, not a true conservative. In one well-publicized commercial, Gracia Burnham of Rose Hill, Kan., whom terrorists held hostage for more than a year in the Philippines, endorsed Tiahrt, while an off-camera voice suggested that Moran supported constitutional rights for terrorists.
But Tiahrt began the campaign behind Moran in geography. Tiahrt’s home district, the 4th Congressional District in south-central Kansas, has roughly 168,000 registered Republicans, the smallest Republican registration for any House district in Kansas. Moran’s 1st District, by contrast, has more than 203,000 registered members of the GOP.
Moran used that advantage as the campaign unfolded, supporters said, by staying away from sharp-elbowed attacks.
“Jerry Moran (was) a common-sense, conservative, plain-spoken man for western Kansas. Tiahrt (was) a touch more ideologue, from Wichita, with an aggressive posture and base,” said political consultant Jeff Roe, who worked with Moran. “The die was cast from that beginning.
