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Steve Watkins, the GOP candidate in this race in the House, was delighted to see that, during a day of knocking on the door, an elector came out on his steps and parroted a Republican line of attack bombarding him. waves.
"Shady Paul Davis!" she cried, alluding to the aggressive aggression announcements launched by the super PAC of House Speaker Paul Ryan, who reprimanded the Democratic candidate in a multi-million dollar advertising campaign shaping this critical race.
Here, in the second congressional district of Kansas, Republicans are furiously pledging to save a siege that's been under the control of their party for a decade – one of two seats in that red state that President Donald Trump has won by more than 20 points, but could return to the Democrats come election day. The GOP opened the doors to Democrats with the retirement of Republican Lynn Jenkins and appointed a political novice confronted with serious questions about whether he had inflated his resume while facing a Democrat experienced who raised a lot more money than his opponent. .
First, Pelosi will have to win the hammer – without the support of Democrats like Davis.
"There are no circumstances in which I will support Pelosi," Davis told CNN in Lawrence, Kansas. "I think the Democrats will usually have to figure out who is the candidate who can get 218 votes."
Davis added, "I think there are times when you just need new blood, and I think that's the moment."
"Well, I'm not going to Washington to dismiss the president," said Davis. When asked if he ruled out this eventuality, whatever comes out of the Russian inquiry, he replied, "What I can say is that I would not go to Washington to dismiss the President. I think that dismissal of a president is a sad event. for our country "
According to a count of CNN, 30 Democrats in races where the party has a good chance of winning have already vowed to oppose Pelosi. This means that the margin of a Democratic majority will be crucial for her to gain access to the presidency. A tiny majority, one or two seats, could be a problem. But a larger majority will allow him to offer defections to the Chamber of Deputies when it will need 218 votes – or a majority of members present and voting for a candidate – to win the presidency.
And that is what Republicans like Watkins have said that the opposition to Pelosi is a joke.
"He says what he thinks he should say to be elected," said Watkins, an army veteran and first-time candidate, who also worked as a defense subcontractor in Iraq and in Afghanistan. "And Kansas voters are not fooled."
Questions about the candidates' past
The biggest question is whether ties with Pelosi will even be a decisive factor in this conservative district.
While they were going door-to-door here in Chanute last week, Watkins employees said Pelosi was a motivator for some voters. But, they said, it's not the only problem to dominate the race.
"I would say that one in four controls Congress," said Dylan Jones, Watkins campaign manager. "So, if they say," We must control Congress and Republicans must go out and vote, "then these people, one in four, are raising Pelosi."
Indeed, other issues dominated the attention in this race, including questions about Watkins' CV. This began during the GOP primary, with information on meetings that he allegedly held with local Democratic officials in 2017 while he was trying to get elected.
Davis says Watkins fired a bait-and-switch.
"He started the campaign by talking to Democratic leaders," Davis said. "And when they met with them, he was supportive of the choice, it was a union-friendly union, told them everything they wanted to hear, and then he found out I was going to run and then he went and becomes a Republican and now he has taken the opposite position on all these issues. "
Watkins calls this story "false news", claiming that it now stands because "I had to look for other ways to serve" after being injured while he was working as a defense contractor in war zones.
"Oh, not at all," said Watkins about meetings he would have had with the Democrats. "Not at all, no, it was false news spread by my opponents who were late in the polls.This was absolutely not true.I would never have considered introducing myself as a democrat . "
He came out of a cluttered primary, he said, partly because of his exterior image.
"We hit 1,000 doors a day, not to convince but to listen," Watkins said of the sparsely populated district. "And what we heard was that people were always attracted to a stranger."
While Davis said that he had voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, Watkins said he had not voted at all.
"I did not vote in 2016. Unfortunately, it was a big mistake on my part," Watkins said. "My goal was elsewhere."
Watkins told CNN that he was not misleading voters.
"You see, I did not own the company," said Watkins. "But I've helped get things started and working on them, and that's where they think they can turn me into a liar, that's just not true."
When asked about the episode, Watkins said that he remembered that Cotter had made these remarks to him. But he said that he had withdrawn the testimony once the concerns had been raised. Nevertheless, he says, "Nothing that happened or what happened has been disputed."
"What happened is that there was a magnitude 7.8 earthquake," Watkins said. "We ended up, I was at 19,000 feet, we were living, there were several other deaths, I exchanged compliments with another mountaineer who does not remember the nature of this compliment. , as I quoted, I said sorry, I took it down. "
Davis said that shows Watkins' lack of contempt for the truth.
"This is just a model that we have seen over and over again from Steve Watkins," Davis said. "I do not think we can trust him."
But Davis has also suffered violent attacks on his past. Ryan's super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, paid $ 3.7 million over the air, with many attacks calling Davis "dubious" after an embarrassing incident in 1998. At the time, Davis was in a strip club getting danced. woman when police entered the scene during a drug raid.
Davis, who was 26 years old and was not married at the time, was not charged with any crime, but a police report said she was not guilty of any crime. had found in a "somewhat compromising position" with the dancer. He says that he was in the club only because his boss, one of his legal clients, was the owner of the premises and took him to the scene.
Controversy erupted in the heat of Davis' unsuccessful rush in 2014 against Republican Sam Brownback. And that has not stopped since.
"Well, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Davis told CNN following a request for an account of the 1998 incident. "And, you know, that's all." is an incident and I think this is an old news for most Kansans.They launched this attack in 2014 when I ran for governor and I do not think it was effective then , and I do not really think that's the case, effective now. "
Asked about the incident, Watkins said, "Well, you know, if I were in his shoes, I would not have found myself in a striptease club in the '90s.
But he also distanced himself from aggressive GOP attack ads, a sign that voters may be tired at this stage of the bitter campaign.
"I can not stand – they are not a product of me," Watkins said about the GOP ads, without stopping to say that they should be removed. "I launched an ambitious campaign."
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