KS-01: Now or Never PAC, a conservative super PAC that spent about a quarter of a million bucks trying to unseat Rep. Tim Huelskamp in last year's GOP primary, has taken the unusual step of informing the congressman by letter that it doesn't plan to attack him this cycle. Unlike what you typically see in most intra-party Republican fights, Huelskamp wasn't targeted by angry tea partiers (he's actually one of them) but rather by big agricultural interests, which resented his efforts to curtail biofuel subsidies.
Huelskamp never seemed to change his tune, though, so it's not at all clear why Now or Never has; instead, its letter (actually written by the head of a consulting firm the group has worked with) says only that Huelskamp should be thanked for his "principled, conservative leadership in Washington." Was there a change of leadership at NONPAC? Or simply a change in relationships? When it comes to the murky world of conservative super PACs, who can know?
The thing is, while Huelskamp of course should stand to benefit from one of his main enemies standing down, NONPAC is just a vehicle. If Big Ag is still unhappy with him, then it's trivial for it to find another way to go after the congressman. The bigger obstacle that Huelskamp's opponents face is there are now two upstarts in next year's primary: Alan LaPolice, the Some Dude who held Huelskamp to just a 10-point win in 2014, and physician Roger Marshall. While the ideological contours of this race might be unusual, the prospect of a split in the anti-incumbent vote is a very familiar one-what we call "getting saved by the clown car."
If anyone has a shot, though, it's probably Marshall, since he's raised far more money than LaPolice ($262,000 to just $12,000). But according to the Topeka Capital-Journal, he has been "hesitant to attack" Huelskamp so far. That will have to change if Marshall's to pull off an upset, plus he'll probably need LaPolice to go away, plus he'll also need some outside help to replace Now or Never. That's a lot to ask, and that means Huelskamp should have a much easier time securing renomination this cycle.