Traditionally conservative farm groups, from the Kansas Farm Bureau to the National Association of Wheat Growers, lined up against Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a Tea Party favorite, ahead of today’s Republican primary in the “Big First” congressional district of Kansas. Yet in this, the most agricultural district in the state, urban voters could decide the race.
The farm groups have lost patience with Huelskamp, who was ousted by Republican leaders from the House Agriculture Committee in 2012 as an obstructionist, and who voted against the 2014 farm law. The race has been framed as Tea Party vs. the establishment. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has endorsed Huelskamp, for example, while challenger Roger Marshall is backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as well as an array of Kansas and national farm groups.
If voters opt for Marshall, “it certainly does suggest, at least in the First District of Kansas, that agriculture has a strong voice,” said a Washington lobbyist who spoke on condition of anonymity.
For farm groups, it could also assuage the sting of failing to derail Cruz, an ethanol critic, in the Iowa presidential caucuses six months ago. Both Huelskamp and Marshall have stressed their conservative bona fides — pro-gun and anti-Obamacare — and were born into Kansas farm families. A major issue in the race was regaining a seat on the House Agriculture Committee.
For all the attention to agriculture, the Big First, which covers two-thirds of Kansas, is surprisingly urban. Some 59 percent of its residents live in town. The largest city in the district, Manhattan, home of Kansas State University, has a larger population, slightly more than 52,000, than the USDA’s count of farm operators — 45,406 — in an area larger than Illinois. The district’s second-largest city, Salina, also has more residents than the Big First has farmers.
“Whatever the outcome is, I doubt that it will mean all that much nationally,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the political website Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Only three House incumbents have lost primary races this year, and the Kansas election is at the closing end of the primary season. “Also, the particulars here are somewhat distinctive: In many ways, this is an establishment challenge to a conservative incumbent, which is the opposite of the usual pattern,” said Kondik.
Farm groups see Huelskamp as a Tea Party diehard who doesn’t know when to compromise or to listen to his district. “Roger Marshall is the clear choice for Kansas … someone who is willing to work with the ag community, the Kansas delegation and colleagues in Washington,” the leaders of five farm groups said in an election-eve statement. “Huelskamp has burned bridges with his colleagues, farmers and ranchers, and many others.”
The anti-spending Club for Growth said Huelskamp is “rock solid” as an economic conservative and has a perfect voting record in the House. Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts, who represented the district before his election to the Senate, endorsed Huelskamp in May, saying he was “a fighter for our Kansas values in Washington, but also as one of the leading conservatives in the entire Capitol.”
Like the rest of Kansas, the district is strongly conservative, so the winner of the GOP primary is a prohibitive favorite to win the Nov. 8 general election. No one filed for the Democratic nomination, said Ballotpedia. Alan LaPolice, who lost to Huelskamp in the Republican primary in 2014, is running as an independent, and Kerry Burt is the Libertarian candidate.