Could a scrappy independent pull off an upset in conservative western Kansas? | McClatchy Washington Bureau

When Roger Marshall defeated Rep. Tim Huelskamp in the August primary, the race appeared to be over in western Kansas’ staunchly Republican “Big First” Congressional District.

No Democrat is opposing Marshall in the general election, and no Democrat could win the sprawling, 63-county district anyway. Kansas has not elected an independent to Congress since 1874.

But on Election Day in a few more weeks, Marshall is on the ballot with Republican-turned-independent Alan LaPolice.

Two years ago, LaPolice nearly pulled off what Marshall did, coming within 5 points of defeating Huelskamp in the primary. And he did it without the Republican establishment’s backing or big money.

Now, LaPolice is courting voters who remain sore from a bruising primary in which outside groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on negative ads and mailers and in which the candidates hurled accusations at each other.

Huelskamp accused Marshall of trying to run down a neighbor with his truck. Marshall claimed Huelskamp didn’t even live in the district and sought to have him disqualified from the ballot.

LaPolice said he didn’t do opposition research and declined to go negative against his opponent.

“I’m not afraid to lose,” he said.

He thinks he can win with a combination of independent voters, Democrats and Republicans who had supported Huelskamp and are angry at party leaders in Washington.

“The voters are so tired of the negative,” LaPolice said in an interview this week. “They were so tired of the mailers. They thought the spending was outrageous.”

Marshall said he was taking nothing for granted, driving 4,000 miles a month across the state and working 16 or 18 hours a day.

“I have an opponent, and I take it very seriously,” he said this week between campaign stops. “It motivates me to work even harder.”

Both campaigns say they have internal polling with favorable numbers. But without a reliable, independent poll, political observers don’t give LaPolice much of a chance given the district’s historical tendencies.

“It would be unprecedented,” said Patrick Miller, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Kansas. “It would be lightning striking.”

Marshall, a physician from Great Bend, has the backing of business heavyweights, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

He’s already met in Washington with top Republican leaders in the House of Representatives, including Speaker Paul Ryan, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise.

“We spent a couple of hours just talking about solutions,” Marshall said.

But the meeting with Republican leaders has opened up Marshall to criticism that he’s acting as though he’s won the election before he actually has.

“Somebody might be counting their chickens before they hatch,” said Curt Mader, the mayor of Russell, a town of 4,500.

Huelskamp was one of the most vocal members of the far-right Freedom Caucus, a rebellious group that stymied House Republican leaders and and drove former Speaker John Boehner out of Congress last year. Huelskamp’s allies accuse Ryan of not defending Huelskamp aggressively enough in the primary and they have turned his defeat into an anti-establishment cause.

“There’s a lot of people who like Huelskamp who dislike Marshall,” said Mader, who supports LaPolice. “It may be a little tougher than what he thinks.”

LaPolice, an educator from Clyde, wasn’t on the ballot until late August. Yet he managed to raise $87,000 in the three months ending Sept. 30, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

That doesn’t come close, however, to matching Marshall’s $595,000 haul in the quarter.

“I’m pretty sure this is a slam-dunk for him,” said Clay Barker, the executive director of the Kansas Republican Party. “That district is so knee-jerk Republican.”

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is popular in the district and all but assured to win Kansas even if he loses elsewhere. Marshall has endorsed Trump and could ride his coattails to victory.

Still, western Kansas voters may again take out the frustration they expressed in the August primary at Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and many of his allies in the state Legislature.

“There is a throw-the-bums-out attitude percolating out here,” said Joe Romance, an associate professor of political science at Fort Hays State University.

LaPolice shares many of Marshall’s conservative views. But he breaks sharply with Republicans on the role of wealthy donors in politics and on Citizens United, the key Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates to outside campaign spending.

“Our process is corrupted by money,” LaPolice said. “Until somebody changes that, we’re going to have the type of Congress we have.”

He also doesn’t share Marshall’s embrace of Trump. While Trump’s latest troubles have led Republicans to circle the wagons to protect their majorities in Congress, LaPolice is staying out of the presidential race.

“It is a saving luxury I don’t have to endorse anybody,” he said.

If elected, LaPolice said, he would prefer to align himself with Republicans. But if they demand his loyalty, he said, he’d cross the aisle.

“I will not hesitate if the Republicans demand loyalty to party over loyalty to country,” he said.

Kansas, in spite of its conservative leanings, has an independent streak. About 30 percent of the state’s registered voters are neither Democrats nor Republicans, according to data from the Kansas secretary of state.

In 2014, an independent candidate, Greg Orman, came closer than anyone expected to defeating longtime Republican Sen. Pat Roberts.

LaPolice got an endorsement last week from Huelskamp’s hometown newspaper, the Hutchinson News. The newspaper’s editorial board called LaPolice “a true outsider” who makes up for what he lacks in funding with “passion and vision.”

This week, right before a candidate forum in Wichita, Libertarian candidate Kerry Burt withdrew from the race and endorsed LaPolice.

LaPolice thinks he gives voters the alternative they’ve craved.

“There is so much need for that outside voice,” he said. “Those independents have never had anybody on the ballot before.”