Conservative champion Ted Cruz is headed to Kansas where he will join several other GOP stars who have stepped in to try to turn the tide for incumbent — and increasingly vulnerable — U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts,
the Washington Post reports.
Cruz plans to join Roberts on a bus tour in an effort to rally the seat for the GOP as a takeover of the Senate hinges on crucial Senate victories around the country.
"To stop the liberal Harry Reid-Barack Obama agenda, we must win the Senate Majority — and we can't do that without Pat Roberts back in the Senate," said Cruz on Monday in a statement, announcing his support.
Roberts, 78, and a veteran lawmaker who has served Jayhawk Republicans since 1997, now trails independent Greg Orman,
CNN reported, in a seat that has been a Republican sure-thing since the 1930s — the last time Kansans elected a Democrat to the Senate.
Polls show Roberts in deep trouble, trailing Orman by 10 points, according to the latest NBC/Marist survey released on Sunday,
the Kansas City Star reported.
Noted Lee Miringoff, who directs the Marist Institute for Public Opinion of Roberts' challenges: The lawmaker is "in a great deal of trouble out there. He's got high negatives, his intensity of support is low, he's losing independents by more than two to one. His to-do list is rather large in the remaining time before Election Day."
Orman, a youthful challenger at 45, "remains relatively undefined," NBC noted, even as Kansas still leans Republican. But in the Sept. 27-Oct. 1 poll, Orman was ahead 48 to 38 percent.
Orman, a Princeton University graduate and entrepreneur, has been all over the political map with his political support, contributing to the campaign of Democrat Harry Reid, but reportedly a longtime admirer of Ronald Reagan. He voted for Obama in 2008 but Mitt Romney in 2012, signaling his independence from tight party affiliation as his campaign donations reflect, according to
OpenSecrets.org, which documented his spending on both sides of the aisle.
"I've tried both parties; and, like most Kansans, I've been disappointed," Orman noted in a 2014 debate, the
Associated Press reported.
Cruz, who announced his endorsement for Roberts on Monday, will be joined on the bus tour for Roberts by Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, according to the
AP.