PERSON: Kris Kobach

Secretary of State

Kris William Kobach (/ˈkoʊbɑːk/ KOH-bahk; born March 26, 1966) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the attorney general of Kansas since 2023. He previously served as the 31st secretary of state of Kansas from 2011 to 2019.

A former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, Kobach rose to national prominence over his support for anti-immigration advocacy, including his involvement in implementing high-profile anti-undocumented immigration ordinances in various American cities.

Kobach began his political career as a member of the City Council of Overland Park, Kansas. He was later the 2004 Republican nominee in Kansas’s 3rd congressional district, losing to Democratic incumbent Dennis Moore. He was elected Secretary of State of Kansas in 2010, winning nearly 60% of the total vote. As Secretary of State, Kobach implemented some of the strictest voter identification laws in the history of the United States, and fought to remove nearly 20,000 registered voters from the state’s voter rolls, frequently spreading false claims of widespread election fraud in the U.S.

Kobach announced in June 2017 that he would run in the 2018 primary for Governor of Kansas against then-Lieutenant Governor Jeff Colyer. Colyer became governor in January 2018 following the resignation of Sam Brownback, but was narrowly defeated by Kobach in the Republican primary by less than 500 votes, Democrat Laura Kelly defeated Kobach in the November general election. In July 2019, Kobach launched his campaign for the open U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Senator Pat Roberts. He was defeated in the Republican primary by 14 percentage points by U.S. Representative Roger Marshall. He became the Republican nominee for Kansas Attorney General in 2022 and was narrowly elected to the post on November 8, 2022.

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