The Latest: Kansas GOP nominates Estes for US House seat

WICHITA, Kan. – The Latest on the Republican nominee for an open south-central Kansas congressional seat (all times local):

9:30 p.m.

Kansas Treasurer Ron Estes is the Republicans’ pick as their nominee for a special election to fill the Kansas congressional seat formerly held by CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

The April 11 vote will be the nation’s first congressional election since President Donald Trump’s win.

Estes and his wife both were delegates at Thursday’s party convention to choose a nominee. Estes was one of the Kansas electors who voted for Trump, and said he is pleased with the direction the new president has taken the country.

Estes was elected treasurer in 2010 and re-elected in 2014.

Republicans have held the 4th District seat since 1994. Pompeo won the state’s 4th District seat in 2010, when the incumbent gave it up to run unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate.

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1:20 p.m.

Republicans are picking their nominee for a south central Kansas congressional seat held for more than two decades by the GOP but vacated recently by Mike Pompeo to become President Donald Trump’s CIA director.

The April 11 vote is the nation’s first special congressional election since Trump’s win, and Democrats are hoping to channel voter discontent into an upset in the heavily Republican district.

Republicans have represented the district that encompasses the state’s largest city of Wichita since Todd Tiahrt unseated veteran Democratic Rep. Dan Glickman in 1994. Pompeo won the state’s 4th District seat in 2010, when Tiahrt gave it up to run unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate. Tiahrt lost a GOP primary race to Pompeo in 2014, and he is among a crowded field now seeking his party’s nomination.