Politics

Biden: Kansas Independent ‘Will Be With Us’

Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
Font Size:

If he is elected Tuesday, Kansas independent Senate candidate Greg Orman will work with Democrats, according to Vice President Joe Biden.

“We have a chance of picking up an independent who will be with us in the state of Kansas,” Biden told radio station WPLR in an interview Tuesday.

That would be news to Kansas voters though.

Orman, who is challenging Republican incumbent Pat Roberts, has been cagey when asked which party he will caucus with if elected.

Roberts has tried to paint Orman as a liberal Democrat posing as an independent. He has cited Orman’s past contributions to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as evidence of that.

The Roberts camp also sees Orman’s refusal to state which party he will caucus with as part of the challenger’s “run out the clock” strategy.

If Orman told voters that he would caucus with Democrats, Roberts and other Republicans believe he would lose handily in conservative Kansas.

Despite his past support for Reid, Orman has said he thinks both the Democrat and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are responsible for the partisan gridlock in Washington. Orman has said that he will support neither leader and claims that he will caucus with whichever party holds a “clear majority” after Tuesday.

The 45-year-old Kansas City-area businessman, who briefly ran as a Democrat against Roberts in 2008, has not said what he believes constitutes a “clear majority.”

With his comments Tuesday, Biden could be making the assumption that enough Democrats hold their seats to maintain their majority, which would then mean that Orman, by his own pledge, would choose to sit on their side of the aisle.

The Senate currently houses two independents– Maine’s Angus King and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders. Both caucus with Democrats. King was also similarly coy about his caucus decision leading up to his election in 2012.

“I think they will hold the Senate,” Biden said of his party’s prospects.

He said he believes Democrats will retain their seats in Alaska, New Hampshire and North Carolina, and that Democratic candidate Michelle Nunn will defeat David Perdue in Georgia.

Biden did not comment on the races in Colorado and Arkansas, where two Republicans are currently leading their incumbent Democratic opponents in the most recent polls. He also did not mention Iowa, where Republican Joni Ernst has a slight edge over Democrat Bruce Braley. They are vying for a seat being vacated by Democrat Tom Harkin.

Republicans are also expected to pick up two Democratic seats in West Virginia and Montana.

The only hesitation Biden offered was in the Louisiana race, in which he said Democrat Mary Landrieu could face a runoff.

“Greg’s never spoken to the vice president in his life. Greg is an Independent, and he’s not going to Washington represent the Democrats or the Republicans – he’s going to represent the people of Kansas,” Orman campaign manager Jim Jonas said in a statement.

Updated to include a statement from the Orman campaign. 

WATCH:

Follow Chuck on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel