Republican Ron Estes won Tuesday’s special election in the Fourth Congressional District of Kansas to replace the district’s former representative, Mike Pompeo, who was named earlier this year by President Trump to serve as Director of the CIA, the Associated Press reported late Tuesday.
“The Associated Press says Republican Ron Estes has won the special House election to replace Mike Pompeo. He has 52 percent of the vote to Democrat James Thompson’s 47 percent with 519 of 620 precincts counted,” the Wichita Eagle reported at 9:43 pm central time.
Democrats were hoping to score an anti-Trump victory in the district Pompeo won in November with 60 percent of the vote. Though their candidate came up short on Tuesday night, local Democrats took some solace in the much narrower margin of victory for the Republicans in this special election.
Some Republicans were not happy with the level of effort the Republican House leadership put in during the campaign.
As Breitbart News reported earlier, House Speaker Paul Ryan spent the week on vacation at Universal Studios in Hollywood. It was left to a conservative Republican member of the Senate, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), to campaign on behalf of Estes in the district on the day before the campaign.
Still, Speaker Ryan expressed his congratulations to Estes on his victory.
“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. Ryan concluded in his statement:
Ron has been deeply involved in his community for years and I’m confident he will be a strong voice for Kansas’ 4th Congressional District in Washington, D.C. Whether in the manufacturing industry or in public office, Ron has always worked to improve efficiency and find savings. Kansans are fortunate to have this committed public servant representing them in Congress and I’d like to offer my full congratulations to Ron and his entire family on his victory.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel also released a statement on Estes’s victory in the special election.
“I want to congratulate Ron Estes on his victory,” she said in the statement.
“President Trump called on Kansans to send Ron Estes to Washington to help Republicans cut taxes and fix healthcare and tonight that’s exactly what they did. While Democrats are desperate to recover from their losses in November, Kansas voters reaffirmed that Republicans, under the leadership of President Trump, remain best equipped to solve the needs of Americans across the country,” McDaniel added.